


Every Me and Every You

by LtTanyaBoone



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1812904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtTanyaBoone/pseuds/LtTanyaBoone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The point of fics set in alternate universes are to show that no matter what setting or circumstance, these two people will always find each other. I will find you. Every me loves every you." - tumblr user deimosluna //AU stories inspired by a tumblr post of prompts//</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. all night diner at 2 am AU

**Author's Note:**

> The post this quote is from can be found ["here"](http://deimosluna.tumblr.com/post/63633373371/the-point-of-fics-set-in-alternate-universes-are)
> 
> A full list of the AU prompts can be found ["here"](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/85369977117/because-we-really-needed-another-au-meme-thats-why). I am not going to write one for the trans/non-binary AU. Even though I would love to read one, as a cis person I do not feel comfortable writing about it; I don't think I'd be able to do it justice.

**Disclaimers:** Orphan Black, the rights to the show and its characters do not belong to me. No money was made by this.  
 **Spoilers:** everything  
 **Rating:** FRT

* * *

> _All night diner at two in the morning AU_

She likes it here.

It’s a strange thought, Delphine realizes. She’s not particularly fond of what she’s seen of the US up until now. Too many people, too loud, too dirty, the food’s too greasy, the coffee too weak, the air too sticky… it just doesn’t feel right.

But this diner, it’s different. They make coffee Delphine can actually drink without making a face. And what’s more, it’s that it’s _quiet_. But that might be because it’s half past one at night and she’s yet again fled her apartment because the walls felt like closing in and this seems to be the only place where Delphine can hear herself think.

“Refill?”

Delphine looks up from her mug, straightening a little on the barstool.

“Yes, please,” she nods, waiting for the waitress to fill her mug again. She reaches out and gently cradles it, inhaling the aroma of the coffee and closing her eyes.

“You know,” the waitress says, making Delphine open her eyes again. She expected her to have walked away. Not that she’s that busy, there’s only one other customer, an old guy sitting in a booth, the table in front of him littered with papers. He looks like a teacher grading essays or something. Doesn’t matter, as long as he keeps quiet, Delphine’s fine with his presence.

“If you have trouble sleeping, you may wanna cut back on the brew,” the waitress tells her, pointing at Delphine’s mug as she puts down the pot on the counter.

“What makes you think I have trouble sleeping?” Delphine furrows her brows.

The waitress gives her a look before pointedly staring at the clock on the wall.

“No idea,” she shrugs finally, grabs the coffee pot and puts it back on the warmer. Delphine watches her briefly, her brows knitted in irritation, before she returns to her coffee. Maybe her sleeping habits have not been the best lately, but it really is none of the other woman’s business. Suddenly, the diner does not feel as welcoming any more, the soft instrumental music in the background grates on her nerves and it’s only like five hours until she has to get up and get ready for the morning lectures.

Delphine opens her mouth to call the waitress back and inform her she would like to pay for her coffee and the sandwich she had earlier, but when she finds her, she’s surprised to see the other woman leaning over the counter, eyes trimmed on a huge book lying on it. It’s not that she’s reading something during her work hours that makes Delphine pause, but that she _recognizes_ that book.

“You’re a microbiology student?” she asks, watching as the other girls dreads fly when her head snaps up.

“Uh, maybe? I haven’t really decided on a field, my friend gave me this. You know, for like,  getting a glimpse of what I’d be getting myself into, I suppose,” she shrugs, glancing at the book and then Delphine. “Wait, you’re in microbiology?”

Delphine slowly nods, brushing her curls away from her face. She’s suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed as the waitress basically stares at her.

“Yes. I, I’m, getting my PhD. Host-parasite relationships,” she shrugs self-consciously. There hasn’t been a single person that heard the topic of her thesis and didn’t make a stupid joke about how that might have a connection with her private life and views on relationships. But the waitress - _Cosima_ , the nametag reveals as Delphine’s eyes dart to it - just tilts her head a little.

“Yeah, I’m more of an genetics kinda gal, like, evo-devo?”

Delphine squints a little, the term unfamiliar, even though it does spark something in her memory-

“Evolutionary development!” she exclaims, giving a small clap and blushing furiously. “Sorry,” she apologizes immediately, “it’s just, the language…” she trails off, trying to resist the urge to run her hand through her hair again.

“Yeah, that must be interesting. Like, being from France and then taking English courses. I don’t even speak enough Spanish to ask someone for directions, nevermind take a class in it,” Cosima grins, casting a look at the man who is thoroughly engrossed in whatever he’s reading before she pulls the book with her as she scoots closer to where Delphine is sitting.

“I’m Cosima, by the way,” she introduces herself, and Delphine feels the corners of her mouth tug upwards in a smile.

“Delphine,” she tells her, looking down at the page Cosima had been reading earlier. She dimly remembers pouring over that page in an attempt to study for one of her exams, though she cannot remember what the chapter is about to save her life.

“Hey, if you ever need someone to show you around... I mean, not just the campus, obvs, because I guess you already know that, but like, for party locations, or where to order take-out, places to avoid if you’re not into food poisoning and all that…” Cosima trails off and Delphine wonders if the sleep deprivation is making her hallucinate or if the other girl is actually blushing.

“Oh yes, definitely,” she nods enthusiastically, making a face as she remembers a rather unfortunate experience involving what she is not entirely certain was the duck that it claimed to be.

“Cool,” Cosima grins at her and Delphine feels herself smiling back, her spirits lifting as Cosima starts talking about a ‘really cool place’ that has ‘like, the best pancakes ever, dude’.

Maybe this brave new world is not so bad at all.


	2. museum AU

It’s the laugh that catches Cosima’s attention. She doesn’t speak all that much French, so the conversations around her are mostly just background noise. When she concentrates, she can understand a couple of words, but it takes too much of her attention, and she’s here to look at the paintings, not listen to the talks of strangers, so yeah. But the laughter that floats over to where she’s admiring one of van Gogh’s paintings makes Cosima blink and slowly turn around, it’s so joyful and gentle that she cannot stop herself. And half the room seems to be agreeing with her, because she’s not the only one staring at the group of school kids with their teacher and the museum guide.

The funny thing is, Cosima immediately knows it wasn’t the teacher who laughed, even though she’s also a woman. The guide is still smiling wildly while the teacher looks like she’s about to murder one of her students, even though what they said was apparently funny enough to make a museum guide laugh so loud she actually disturbed other people. Cosima has never managed to see anything like that. And she hasn’t really seen anyone like the guide before, either.

She’s drop dead gorgeous. With a body that Cosima is pretty sure should be carved into marble and put up in this place. And her hair, all wild blonde curls…

Before she realizes it, Cosima has drawn closer to the group, even though she doesn’t understand a word of what is being said, and follows them into the next room. She lingers in the background and feigns interest in other paintings while stealing glances at the attractive guide and makes an attempt to get what she’s talking about. But there’s too much terminology in it that Cosima is hopelessly lost, but for once in the twelve days since she arrived in France, it doesn’t bother her at all.

The guide has a voice like molten chocolate and Cosima would like to drown in it. She doesn’t realize that they are nearing the end of the tour and then the teacher suddenly says something that makes the students scatter and Cosima gives a disappointed sigh, because now the other woman is hogging the guide’s attention and she cannot hear what they are talking about. So she slinks back, finds a painting that seems interesting enough to look at for a couple of minute before she will leave. It’s drawing close to noon and she’s starting to get hungry, anyway, best to find herself a place to eat and have a look at her guide to see where she could go next.

The sudden sound of that molten chocolate voice next to her makes Cosima jump visibly, and the guide is quick to apologize to her. At least Cosima assumes it’s an apology, she thinks there may have been a “desolée” in there, but really, guide gal is talking way too fast.

“Sorry, totally my fault,” she finally decides on saying, and it cuts the guide off mid-word, her mouth forming a perfect o-shape.

“I am sorry,” she slowly says and Cosima’s heart actually skips a beat at the accent. When the hell did she get so pathetic?

“I did not mean to startle you,” the guide apologizes. “I just noticed you following us around-”

 _Oh, crap._ Cosima can’t help but blush.

“Yeah, uh, I’ll, I’ll pay for the tour,” she quickly assures the woman. Who blinks at her in surprise.

“ _Non!_ ” she exclaims, flinching before she casts a look around and lowers her voice. “No, I didn’t mean- I wanted to ask if you had any questions.”

Now it’s Cosima turn to blink and open her mouth to gape briefly.

“Huh?” she mutters, feeling incredibly stupid.

“Well, between the children and you, I thought you were the more interested, especially because you’re here on your own time,” the guide shrugs and Cosima’s eyes dart to her nametag. _Delphine Cormier_.

“So, if you have any questions-”

“Do you wanna go for a coffee?” Cosima blurts before she can stop herself. Delphine’s eyes widen and Cosima fees her face grow hot again and just wishes that the ground would open and swallow her whole. Now she’ll have to pay for that tour she sneaked into, anyway, on top of being thrown out-

“I get off at five, maybe dinner and a drink would be preferable?”

Delphine’s smiling at her and Cosima’s lips curl into a grin so wide it threatens to split her face in two.

“That, that works, too,” she nods enthusiastically, causing Delphine to give a soft giggle. “I could, pick you up? Because I have absolutely no idea where anything is this town is, so…”

Delphine nods again, her eyes sparkling with amusement and joy.

“Yes. I will see you then,” she inclines her head before stepping away.

“Cosima,” Cosima suddenly says, making her turn around again and raise her eyebrows at her. “That’s, that’s my name.”

“See you at five, Cosima,” Delphine smiles before turning her attention to an older gentleman who holds a museum guide under her nose. Cosima watches briefly, her heart fluttering in her chest before she turns in the direction of the exit, a new bounce in her steps.


	3. dance school AU

She’s practiced the words a hundred times over in her head. But now, standing outside the dance hall, her heart is in her throat and she cannot quite manage to get it back under control.

Their teachers had no idea when they cooked up the bullshit idea that they need to be comfortable getting touched by other people. They’ve done sensual dancing before, and Cosima certainly has no problem with it. No, definitely not. But the thing is, they’re asking for sensual now, after having given their students same-sex dance partners.

It’s not usual, for her. To keep that part of herself firmly under wraps, to be almost afraid of someone finding out about her sexuality. But the thing is, gay guys are totally accepted here, but stuff like that always comes with a meaningful “but if a girl tries that with me”, so she’s kept her mouth shut for a change. Kept it firmly shut, clamped a hand over it and then duct-taped it in place.

The thing is, she likes her dance partner. Like, _like-likes_ her. Very much. She’d noticed her before, noticed the fluidity of her movements, the happiness on her face when she’d received a compliment from their very strict classic dance instructor. Holy _hell_ , Cosima had seen that face and felt her knees wobble so she’d had to break the stance and earn herself a raised eyebrow from the same teacher. Oh well, ballet has never been her strong suit, she will survive.

Cosima knows that even here, she sticks out like a sore thumb. There are only a handful of people with dreads, only a handful of people with visible piercings who refuse to take them out during classes. Only a handful of people with tattoos. She might actually be the only one that has all those features combined, and it has earned her a very thorough once-over during the entrance exams. She did cover her arms for the classic dance part, but modern dance required a different attire, and really, she was sweating so badly at that point that long sleeves were definitely not an option any more.

“Bonsoir.”

The voice next to her makes Cosima jump and her hand goes to her chest in a futile attempt to calm her racing heart.

“Jesus fuck, don’t do that!” she exclaims, trying to catch her breath. When she looks over, she finds Delphine looking down at her, a frown on her soft features. How the fuck does someone who wears so little makeup still look so fucking attractive? It’s not _fair_.

“I’m sorry,” her dance partner apologizes. “I wanted to get some practice in and I saw you standing here…” she trails of, her teeth flashing as she worries at her lower lip.

 _No, please, don’t, don’t do that- oh fuck!_ Cosima thinks, finding the crowd of butterflies take off in her stomach.

“Sorry,” she says, gesturing at the glass windows to indicate the teacher inside, walking slowly through dance steps. Maybe a new choreography, maybe just thinking, trying something... Cosima hasn’t been paying attention, lost in her own thoughts and worries and on how to go about trying to explain why she absolutely cannot dance with Delphine Cormier, not in front of the entire class, not in front of _anyone_ looking. Because as much as she’s tried to hide her secret, she knows that the instant she lays a hand on Delphine, it will be obvious, and that no amount of claiming she’s really good at acting will be able to convince anyone. Not the teachers, not the other students, and certainly not Delphine herself.

Delphine scrunches up her face and sighs. It’s only then that Cosima notices her attire. She’s never seen her voluntarily wear something more suited for modern dance class than classic, has come to the conclusion that Delphine is the French stereotype of being really excellent and at home with ballet but struggling with modern interpretations.

“Hey,” her face suddenly lights up as she turns towards Cosima again, “if you get changed, maybe we can convince her to give us the room, to let us practice?”

 _No_ is what Cosima _should_ be saying. She should be telling Delphine she needs to have a word with their teacher, that practicing together won’t be happening because it makes no sense, because Cosima prays they will be assigned new partner, one that will not equal her renting out a flashing neon sign with her sexual identity written for anyone to see.

“Yes,” is what she breathes and scurries down the hall to her room to get changed. Before she really knows what she’s doing, she’s back at the classroom, where Delphine is already stretching. She gives her a warm smile as Cosima does the same before a few practice spins and a last time of trying to remember the final few steps. She feels Delphine watch her, eyes following her motions. It makes her really self-conscious and she stumbles before blushing furiously.

“Yeah, okay, it’s not getting any better than that,” she finally decides. Delphine blinks, slowly, once, twice before she shakes her head and turns on the music.

The first round is weird and there is a lot of distance between them. Not physically, but… well, when you’ve been dancing for a while, you kind of get an idea what the other person is thinking about, and at first, both Cosima and Delphine are so occupied with getting the steps right that there is little room for anything else, not even really noticing each other’s movements.

The second time around, Delphine steps on her toes. Literally. She’s all concern and apologies and red tint coloring her cheeks as Cosima hobbles around, hissing under her breath as Delphine mutters on about how sorry she is.

“I hate Modern,” she whispers, steadying Cosima as the girl flexes her foot, tries to assess the damage. It could be worse, they could have crashed into each other at full speed (actually, Cosima half-expected that to happen at the first run), and she didn’t put her full weight on it.

“It’s okay,” she assures her, doing a few jumps to make sure she won’t suddenly be brought to her knees by crippling pain before they take their positions again. The third time, they go without the music, to be able to go slower. At the point where they previously collided, they find there is a brief moment where they are in the same place. It’s not intended, but their starting points were slightly off and their difference in height means their steps do have a difference in length neither one of them calculated in, especially because the first run went smooth enough for them not to notice it.

It takes them almost half an hour to figure out a solution to that, because whenever something seems to work, it screws up on the second try. By the time they run through the full choreography for the fourth time, both Delphine and her are sweating hard enough that Delphine really has to tighten the hold she has on Cosima’s arm to keep her hand from slipping. It’s innocent enough, but Cosima notices all the same, notices how close Delphine is, notices the way she smells, the way her hand glides down Cosima’s body, the way Cosima’s rest maybe just a tiny bit too low on her back. Not that Delphine complains. Actually, it seems like she’s entirely unaware of Cosima’s growing unease, like she doesn’t notice how flushed she is.

It’s the sixth run, the final one (“ _Just one more time_ ,” Delphine asked and really, how on earth could Cosima refuse her?), that makes her careful control finally snap.

She’s supposed to hook her leg around Delphine’s hip and tilt back, Delphine’s hand running over her sternum as she draws up again. She gets as far as the leg hook, the warmth of Delphine’s hand at her back seeping through her clothes, growing hot hot _hot_ -

“ _Shit_ ,” Cosima breathes, hand pressed over her mouth. Half the classroom is between them, the din of the music vibrating through her body. Delphine has her back turned, one hand resting on the back of her head, where her braid starts, the other covering her face. Cosima cannot see her face and she definitely doesn’t want to. She clambers over, shutting off the music. It’s only then that she realizes how fast she’s breathing, when there is no other sound but that heavy breathing filling the room.

She was supposed to tilt backwards. Not lift her arms, wrap them around Delphine’s neck and kiss her.

_Fuck!_

“I am so, _so sorry_ ,” she starts apologizing, drawing a step closer towards Delphine. _I don’t know what got into me, it was an accident, I’ll ask for another dance partner;_ they all sound like good things to say, but Cosima cannot make her mouth move. Instead, she’s watching Delphine, the tension in her shoulders, the heaving of her chest. Wants to make sure she’s not about to have a complete freak-out. Not that Cosima would blame her, but the last thing she needs is Delphine yelling at her, or worse, running out to tell everyone.

She stays at a distance, even though she wants to touch Delphine’s shoulder, wants to run her hand down her back in some weird gesture of comfort. But Cosima remembers the first time someone kissed her when she didn’t expect it, and if that person had tried to touch her… broken fingers would definitely have been the most likely outcome.

“Delphine, I know, I screwed up, but, could you like… say _something_?” she asks after a few moments, when she’s turned her head and realized she can see Delphine’s face in the mirror, realizes that her eyes are clenched shut and she’s gone from her chest heaving to barely breathing.

Delphine doesn’t move, is still as a stature, so Cosima inches closer, slowly, until she is close enough to stretch out and touch her elbow. Delphine whirls around at the contact, eyes wide.

“Sorry,” Cosima apologizes again, for both, the kiss and suddenly touching her again.

Delphine opens her mouth before closing it, eyes skirting away. She’s fidgeting, fingers dancing along the hem of her tank top, inner turmoil manifesting.

“I’ll talk to Rochard tomorrow, get her to reassign me. I’ll explain what happen, I’m sure she’ll-”

The sudden movement makes Cosima jump, but then Delphine’s hands are on her face, pulling her up for another kiss. This time, it doesn’t end with their lips brushing, this time, Cosima’s tongue snakes into her mouth and then _she’s_ the one moaning, arms going up again to wrap around Delphine’s neck, to steady her and pull her down a little, and Delphine’s one hand trails down the length of her body until it’s at Cosima’s waist and she can feel the heat as Delphine’s fingers dig into the fabric of her clothes. Her other hand is curling into Cosima’s dreads, almost gently, in no way matching the urgency of the kiss.

It wonderful and almost intimate and hurried and she hungers, hungers for more, more of this, more of Delphine-

Surprisingly, Cosima has enough sense so stop when she feels Delphine’s fingers ghosting over her skin around her waist. That touch is all it takes to send her back to the present, to the classroom with floor-length windows at a school where anyone could walk right past and see them. Could see them standing there, kissing like there is no tomorrow, like they’re about to devour each other.

Delphine makes a sound that can only be described as a growl when Cosima breaks the kiss.

“Totally hot,” she mutters, resting her forehead against hers and unable to resist brushing her lips over Delphine’s again, “and totally not the place.”

Her dance partner sighs, arms falling away as she takes a step back from her. Cosima suddenly feels naked, _exposed_ , suddenly wishing she hadn’t said anything. Suddenly wanting to tell Delphine to come back, to touch her again, like that, and not care about who might see.

“Room 8,” Delphine mutters, reaching out so her fingers ghost over the inside of Cosima’s wrist, over the tattoo inked into her skin as she passes her. Cosima closes her eyes, hands clenching into fists as she counts in her head, counts backwards from twenty, so she doesn’t immediately run after Delphine. So the other girl has time to change her mind, time to come to her senses.

When she does finally follow her, Cosima’s heart is beating so loud she’s afraid the entire school is going to hear. It’s almost midnight, most of the students are already asleep. Cosima stops in front of room eight, draws a deep breath and another before she reaches out, hand on the doorknob. She hesitates, wondering if she should knock. Briefly considers leaving, because what are the odds? Of her kissing a really hot girl and for that girl not to report her right away, but to instead not only kiss her back, but to invite her to her room. Chances are, when Cosima opens that door, it will end with her getting yelled at and humiliated. Better leave it as it is now, she thinks, but her hand is slowly twisting the doorknob, her heart stopping when it turns and the door opens.

Delphine is standing at the dresser drawer, brush in her hand. She’s taken out her braid, blonde curls spilling over her shoulders. Cosima wants to reach out and bury her hand in the long tresses, but she closes the door and leans against it instead, meeting Delphine’s eyes in the mirror.

“Hey,” she mutters, her voice barely audible and still way too loud.

Delphine turns, placing the brush down.

“Hi,” she replies, bottom lip between her teeth again. For a second, neither of them move, and then they clash in the middle of the room, mouths seeking each other, kissing, hands roaming and pulling at clothes. As Cosima is wrestling with her pants, she hears Delphine lock the door and the door to the bathroom she shares with room nine and it makes Cosima gulp.

“I’ve never…” Delphine murmurs when she kisses her again, softer, hands tugging on Cosima’s shirt, as if she’s not sure what to do.

“I can show you,” Cosima replies, kissing her again, teeth grazing against her lip. “Or we can just, stop,” she offers when Delphine doesn’t react. Her head snaps back and hits the door, making both of them flinch. Cosima reaches up and runs her hand over the back of Delphine’s head.

“No,” the French girl whispers, “I don’t think I want to stop.”

“Tell me if you change your mind,” Cosima breathes as her shirt gets pulled over her head and thrown halfway across the room. She waits for Delphine to humm her assent before kissing her again, hands going to the string of her pants.

It’s possibly the worst sex Cosima has ever had, and that is counting the first time she slept with a guy and they had both no idea what they were doing. But it’s weirdly enjoyable, because Delphine… _holy fuck_ , she’s never had someone be as responsive to each and every touch. There is a point where Cosima actually has to press her hand over the blonde girl’s mouth because kisses are doing nothing to keep her quiet and she is afraid of someone hearing.

Delphine’s an eager and quick learner, too, and there is something in the way she looks right into Cosima’s eyes when she touches her, following her instructions and looking for any cue as to what to do that makes the heart in Cosima’s chest skip a beat and then her vision is exploding in a mess of colors and her back arches off the mattress and she can’t think any more.

In the morning, she feels tired and boneless and has the worst time dragging herself out of bed. Even though she stole to her own room like, half past four in the morning, so they wouldn’t be found together. Delphine was sleeping soundly, she didn’t even really notice Cosima slip from beneath her arm. Well, okay, she made a sound in the back of her throat but at Cosima’s whispered instruction to go back to sleep, the French girl merely followed her advice by turning around and burying her face in her pillow.

She’s sitting at the breakfast table, staring into her yoghurt and cereal and trying to find the energy to grab her spoon and start eating. Alison is droning on about how she was up half the night, trying to memorize the scene they have to perform for their acting class. Cosima is only half listening when Delphine sits down at the table, wordlessly.

“Good morning to you, too,” Alison greets her, rather irritated. Delphine nods, cradling her mug of coffee in her hands and inhaling the scent before she takes a sip. Alison furrows her brows before she shakes her head.

“And I thought they would enforce the curfew, you know,” she continues on, ignoring the French girl. Cosima frowns, giving her neighbor a look before she grabs her spoon and starts on her food.

“What curfew?” Delphine asks, blinking sleepily down at her plate with a bagel and cheese. She groans, realizing she forgot to bring a knife. Cosima hands her Alison’s, ignoring the indignant sound of protest the other girl makes.

“Someone snuck in their boyfriend last night,” Alison answers, glowering daggers at Delphine. Who ignores her look in favor of sinking her teeth into the bagel. Cosima’s mind flashes back to last night and the feeling of those teeth nibbling at her shoulder.

“Huh?” Cosima mutters, giving Alison a confused look.

“If you turned down those blaring headphones of yours, you would have heard the _noises_ coming from down the hall,” the other girl hisses.

“What noises?” Delphine asks stupidly as Cosima already catches up and wants for the ground to open and swallow her hole.

“ _Sex noises!_ ” Alison almost screeches under her breath. Delphine’s jaw drops before she decides to grab her mug of coffee and hide her face behind it. Cosima can feel her cheeks starting to burn, so she goes for nonchalant and shrugs.

“Good for them,” she says, hoping that Alison doesn’t hear the hitch in her voice; doesn’t notice the way Delphine is looking at her.

“What is good for them was bad for my sleep,” Alison sighs, rubbing a hand over her face.

“Hey, did you have a chance to get that address from your friend?” Cosima tries to distract her, before she starts realizing that her and Delphine are much too tired for two people who did not have their sleep interrupted by those noises.

“Oh fishsticks!” Alison groans and grabs her tray, telling Cosima to save her a seat, she’ll just go to her room real quick to see if she can find the address of that club, leaving Cosima and Delphine by themselves.

“Morning,” Cosima mutters finally. Delphine looks up from her food, flashing her a smile as her cheeks heat up.

“Bonjour,” she replies, the fingers of her hand brushing over Cosima’s. She casts a look around, lowering her voice.

“Remind me to get changed in my room today,” she whispers, stirring her coffee.

“What, why?” Cosima asks, giving up and pushing her food away with a yawn.

“Alison may be oblivious,” Delphine says with a soft chuckle, “but if she sees the hickeys on my hips, I’m sure even she will figure out who was producing those _noises_ last night.”

Cosima is pretty sure her ears are burning crimson but when she looks at Delphine, she cannot help but burst into giggles, the French girl joining in. It’s how Alison finds them ten minutes later, two before classes start, giggling like hyperactive teenagers on a sugar high.

“What on earth has gotten into you?” she mutters, pushing them down the hall into the classroom.

 _Love_ , Cosima wants to answer, _irresponsible, inconvenient and absolutely incredible love._

She doesn’t say anything, just exchanges a look with Delphine and feels the butterflies doing somersaults in her belly when the other girl smiles at her.


	4. knick knack shop AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please be aware of this AU containing a major character death

“You looked like you could use the company.”

The statement is accompanied by a mug of steaming coffee being placed next to her. Cosima looks up from her place on the stairs, shielding her eyes against the sun.

“Thanks,” she mutters as the new girl sits down next to her. She forgot her name again, something French, that much she remembers. But in all honesty, Cosima has had too much on her mind lately to keep up with the endless stream of helps that walk in and out of her father’s little shop.

“Is everything okay?” the French girl asks her, brushing her blonde curls behind her ear. Cosima feels a laugh bubble up in her throat but forces it down. There is no point in telling a stranger her life story. Even though it’s going to be a mighty short one.

“I got accepted at Berkeley,” she tells her instead, unsure of why that is. Frenchie blinks at her.

“Congratulations,” she says, an uncertain note in her voice.

“It’s good,” Cosima replies, taking a sip of the coffee. She can drink a pot of the weak brew her father makes and still fall asleep over her books, but this one, this one is strong. She can feel the hot liquid running down her throat, almost burning. Burning is good, burning is distracting her from her thoughts.

“When are you going?”

Cosima sighs, inclining her head. She’s not going, won’t be going to Berkeley. Because three hours after reading her acceptance letter, she finally found out why she’s been feeling kinda off, why that persistent cough won’t go away, why she has the taste of blood in her mouth when she’s coughing…

“End of summer,” she answers, her heart pressing against her ribcage at the lie. A small lie, because she will be leaving, at the end of summer. Just not for Berkeley. And really, it is better this way. She doesn’t want anyone else to know, made her parents swear they wouldn’t tell anyone. She knows it’s a small comfort that won’t last long, knows that there will be a point where they’ll both have to quit their jobs to care for her, probably. But for the time being, Cosima is firmly routed in denial and not wanting anyone to know. That’s one of the stages of grief, isn’t it? And oh joy, she’ll have to work her way through all of them eventually.

Cosima takes another sip of the coffee at the thought, hoping for more pain to distract her.

“You don’t seem happy about it,” the blonde observes. Her eyes are trimmed to Cosima, searching her face. When she looks at her, Cosima suddenly wonders how old the French girl is. She can’t be much older than herself yet she’s so far away from home…

“Yeah, well, I am. It’s just, leaving this place, it’s…” she trails off, tears forming in her eyes. Frenchie nods slowly, looking out across the street, her hands cradling her own mug.

“I got accepted into med school,” she suddenly reveals. “I was scared of it, too. Leaving home, and all of that, to go to school so far away…”

“You’re here. In the US,” Cosima observes, frowning in confusion. The French girl is quiet, staring into the contents of her mug, as if the coffee within holds the answers to every question ever asked.

“The week before school started, I packed a bag, got on a train to Paris and booked the first flight. I wrote my parents an email, telling them that I had somehow lost myself, that I had no idea what I wanted, that I had to find myself first before making any decisions…”

“How old are you?” Cosima asks her stupidly.

“Nineteen,” the other girl answers with a short laugh. “It was crazy, I know. What nineteen year old has to find themselves?” she murmurs as she takes a sip of her coffee.

Cosima swallows, her knuckles whitening around her mug.

“Did it work?” she inquires after a pause. The other girl gives her a questioning look. “Did you find yourself here?”

“No,” she shakes her head, sending blonde curls flying. “But I think I might be starting to,” she amends after a pause, her lips slowly quirking into a smile.

“Then let’s drink to that,” Cosima grins, clanking their mugs together. It’s the first time she ever really talks to Delphine, the first time of many, and each time, it makes things a little easier and a little harder at the same time.

* * *

She loves hanging out at her dad’s shop now. Which has more to do with the company than the place itself. It’s been years since Cosima was mesmerized by all the things people managed to accumulate. Now she’s staring at them, wondering about the origin of some of the pieces, what made their original owners sell them…

Delphine tries to get rid of her a couple of times, before she lets Cosima stay, on the condition that she does not distract her. Not that there is much to distract her from. The little town they live in isn’t exactly a tourist magnet, most of the time. Sometimes people stop by, have a look around, maybe buy something. But for the most part, the two girls are alone, chatting and cleaning. Delphine enlists her help in dusting off the place (“If you are going to stay, you might as well do something other than stare off into space,” she said, and Cosima saw the concern etched onto her features, so she gave in).

“No way!” Cosima exclaims and Delphine shrugs, re-arranging the books on the shelf. “That’s, that’s blasphemy.”

The other girl lets out a soft laugh.

“I do not think me not having seen every French movie constitutes blasphemy,” she replies, smiling at Cosima in amusement.

“But it’s a classic!” Cosima protests.

“You sound like I have personally offended you,” Delphine laughs.

“Well,” Cosima shrugs, bumping into her, “I just cannot believe someone who actually speaks the language and isn’t in the need of subtitles has never seen _Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain_.”

Delphine cringes slightly, making Cosima pause.

“That bad?” she asks, feeling a little sheepish.

“ _Non_ ,” the French girl quickly shakes her head, but when she looks at Cosima she flinches. “Well, yes. Sorry.”

“Tell you what,” Cosima suddenly decides, her heart beating frantically in her chest, “I stop butchering your language if you agree to watch the movie with me.”

She watches as Delphine pauses, one of the books raised halfway to be put on the shelf. It makes Cosima nervous, as if she has overstepped the boundaries somehow. Maybe Delphine doesn’t actually like her, maybe she just tolerates her because Cosima is her boss’s daughter, and _oh God_ , how could she have been so _stupid_?

“Agreed,” Delphine suddenly nods, setting the book down firmly before she turns to face Cosima. “On one small condition.”

The brunette eyes her wearily, raising an eyebrow in silent question.

“We get lots of unhealthy food and ice cream and you forget about whatever it is that has you looking like this,” she gestures to Cosima’s face. The American swallows thickly before she nods.

“Okay. My place, tomorrow evening. Bring chips,” she instructs Delphine before dancing off to check out a tea set her father got recently.

“It’s a date,” Delphine calls after her and Cosima wishes she’d be able to ignore the fluttering in her stomach at the words.

* * *

_Her lips are so soft._

It’s like the thought is playing on repeat in her head, but Cosima can’t help herself to stop it. Neither can she stop kissing Delphine, her hands tangled in those blonde curls.

She’s ended up half on top of the other girl, one of Delphine’s hands resting at the base of Cosima’s skull while the fingers of the other are hooked through one of the belt loops on Cosima’s hotpants, keeping her from pulling away. Not that she has any intention to, oh no, she likes this, likes this very much.

“ _Merde_ ,” Delphine suddenly whispers against her lips and shifts, almost sending Cosima flying off the couch.

“Woah!” she exclaims, barely managing to steady herself.

“Leg cramp,” Delphine presses out between clenched teeth, face contorting in pain. Before she knows what she’s doing, Cosima has reached out and is massaging her calf, Delphine’s face slowly transforming into one of bliss as the muscle beneath Cosima’s finger begins to relax.

“Better?” she asks her breathlessly, watching as Delphine nods, leaning in for another soft kiss.

“Sorry, for ruining the mood,” she murmurs, but Cosima shakes her head, resting her forehead against Delphine’s. Her heart is racing, her lungs are aching, and she can feel the insistent tickle in her throat, the one that tells her she’s about to start coughing again. _Not yet_ , Cosima thinks, forcing the attack down. For once, her body obeys her. It’s a small victory, and Cosima is pretty sure she will pay for it when the next attack will probably be more vicious, but she has absolutely no intention of killing the mood between them.

Delphine has her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying at it before she kisses her again, her hands cradling Cosima’s face. Cosima sighs into her mouth, pressing closer, but when she moves to straddle the other girl, Delphine flinches. It’s subtle, and the only reason Cosima catches it is because they are already so damn close, but it makes her pause and look at the other girl, worry in her eyes.

“You okay?” she asks her. She’d wonder if the leg cramp was a fake, an attempt to get Cosima off her, but she felt the muscle twitching beneath her fingers, and Delphine doesn’t strike her as a liar.

“ _Oui_ ,” Delphine nods quickly, pausing before she gives a minute shake of her head. “ _Non_ ,” she admits, halting, her lip back between her teeth. “I have never, kissed, another girl.”

Cosima’s jaw actually drops at that and she blinks at her, completely dumbfounded.

“Oh,” she breathes, leaning back.

“I’m sorry,” Delphine apologizes, running a hand through her blonde curls. “I, I think I, like you,” she stammers, frowning at herself, “but this is…”

“A bit much,” Cosima helps her out when she trails off. Delphine gives her a thankful look, an eager nod.

“Yes,” she breathes. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Cosima quickly shakes her head. “Don’t apologize. It’s fine, really, totes okay. We don’t have to do anything. I mean, I wasn’t gonna do anything. Nothing you’re not cool with, obvs.”

She wants to whack her head against the wall for rambling like that. The truth is, Cosima _wants_. Wants to touch Delphine, wants to kiss her, wants to undress her and run her hands all over her body. Wants to be close, wants to be so close she _drowns_ in Delphine, because for some reason, the other girl has a way of making Cosima forget. Forget about the growths inside of her, her own body attacking itself, slowly killing her from the inside. But she’s not going to tell Delphine that, and neither is she going to push her into doing anything the other girl isn’t a hundred per cent up to.

Delphine just relaxes and smiles at her.

“I’m _cool_ with kissing,” she informs her, promptly leaning in for another smooch. Cosima’s cool with that, too, because when it comes to distracting her, there’s nothing better than Delphine and her bubbly energy.

* * *

Her father has a weird habit of inviting people over for dinner spontaneously. Cosima is used to it, and there is always enough food to feed at least five people at home, in case he shows up with a surprise guest. She enjoys it, sometimes, and her mother never complains about it. Or at least she never used to. Now she tries to talk him out of it, so they might spend some more time with their dying daughter. Cosima hates nothing more than alone time with her parents, because her mother is always about to cry and her father never knows what to say. Then again, she really does not like to be surprised by having her somewhat kinda girlfriend show up at the dinner table.

“You have been quiet,” Delphine murmurs as she steps outside after dinner, to where Cosima is sitting on the porch. “You barely ate anything, and you didn’t say more than three sentences.”

Cosima doesn’t answer, just continues to stare into the beginning dark. Delphine wraps her arms around her torso, taking a step closer. The light from the kitchen window hits her face and when Cosima turns her head, she sees that she’s been crying.

“Look, if it’s me, you can tell me. I don’t know what I did wrong, but-”

“It’s not you,” Cosima shakes her head, but it only makes Delphine frown.

“You don’t talk to me any more. You don’t stop by the shop, you make up excuses so we cannot go out together…” she lists, pausing before she lowers her voice even further in an attempt to not have Cosima’s parents catch their conversation. “I know it was bad, okay? I’m sorry about it. But if you want to break up with me over bad sex, then please, at least tell me so.”

Cosima blinks, once, twice.

“Say something. Anything. _Please_ ,” Delphine pleads, crouching down in front of her, tears burning in her eyes.

“I’m dying,” she breathes slowly, holding her breath. Delphine stares, searching her face, anger flickering over her features before it slowly resolves and a tear spills from her left eye.

“ _Quoi?_ ”

“Polyps in my lungs, and kidneys, and I had a seizure a couple of days ago, so they’ve probably already spread to my brain,” Cosima tells her, feeling the secret that’s been eating away at her spilling out of her. “I didn’t ask my parents when they talked to the doctors.” Watches as Delphine closes her eyes before she opens them again after swallowing thickly. Watches as she starts shaking her head.

“But, but Berkeley. You’re going to go away, to study, study microbiology. I’m going to visit you after a month, look for a job and apartment there…” she trails off when Cosima doesn’t reply, when the tears start to fall from Cosima’s eyes.

“Cosima, _non_ ,” Delphine breathes, and Cosima’s shoulders start shaking with sobs, her facade finally crumbling. She doesn’t have the energy to keep it up any more. She feels Delphine sit down beside her and then her arms are around her and Cosima is clutching at her, holding on for dear life. Maybe that will save her, she thinks dimly, if she just holds on tightly, as tight as she can, holds onto Delphine and refuses to let go of her, ever.

* * *

She managed not to hack up a lung in front of Delphine before that evening, also because she’d done her best to avoid her when the coughing got worse and the tissues started turning read in her grasp. Now she is sitting in her father’s weird little shop, after closing time. She ditched her parents for the night, which wasn’t an easy task. But telling them she’d be with Delphine helped, because for whatever weird reason, her father seems really, really fond of the French girl. Much like Cosima.

“Okay, stop it,” Delphine laughs, reaching out to stop her from pulling another trinket from a shelf to examine it. “Please, I don’t want to have to clean them up later.”

“I used to have one like this,” Cosima remembers, holding the unicorn figurine. “My grandma gave it to me, as a present.”

“Where is it now?” Delphine asks, her voice soft.

“She died when I was ten. I didn’t want it around any more, it hurt too much,” Cosima shrugs, frowning at the figurine. It’s not the one her grandma gave her, hers was in a different pose. Suddenly, she turns, surprised to find Delphine so close. “If I buy this for you, will you keep it?” she asks her, her eyes bright.

“A unicorn figurine?” Delphine frowns slightly.

“Like a, a souvenir. To remember our time together,” Cosima shrugs, looking away. Delphine’s fingers are cold when she reaches up, cradles Cosima’s face to make her look at her again.

“ _Regarde-moi_ ,” she whispers, waiting for Cosima to do so. “I won’t need souvenirs to remember you,” Delphine tells her, leaning down for a soft kiss. Cosima wraps her arms around her and hugs her, hiding her face briefly in the fabric of Delphine’s dress so she won’t see her tears.

“Please don’t forget me,” Cosima pleads, feeling fear creep up her spine. Delphine’s hold on her tightens as she turns her head. Her lips are soft when they brush against her temple, her breath hot as she whispers in her ear.

“Never. _Je te promets_.”

Cosima leans back, searching Delphine’s face.

“Sleep with me,” she breathes. Delphine’s eyebrows twitch in surprise before the form a frown.

“Cosima-”

“I don’t care,” Cosima says, clearing her throat, stubbornly refusing to cough. That will only remind Delphine of why that is a really, really bad idea. “I don’t care how bad the first time was. I just, I want to feel you. I want to feel _alive_.”

Delphine looks down, bottom lip between her teeth, and Cosima knows she almost has her.

“Please, Delphine,” she adds and feels the hold her girlfriend has soften as she closes her eyes.

“Not here,” Delphine shakes her head, slowly letting go.

“Why-”

“I am not sleeping with you in your father’s shop, absolutely not,” she interrupts Cosima, walking over to the door and holding it open for her. Cosima follows her, slowly. They are halfway down the block before Delphine takes her hand, entwines their fingers. Her skin is soft and warm, just like the air around them. It’s summer, Cosima thinks with a start, the time for reckless choices. Live falling in love when you know you’re already dying.

She’s never seen Delphine’s place before. It’s quaint. Surprisingly chaotic, clothes strewn around. When Cosima tells her she pegged her for tidy, the French girl blushes.

“I couldn’t find something to wear,” she murmurs against Cosima’s lips, allowing her to pull her onto the bed. It’s slow, but Cosima has no intention to speed things up. She wants to remember this, wants to remembers _everything_ about it. Delphine and her only had sex once before, and then Cosima started avoiding her, because she got worse, and after she told Delphine, the other girl didn’t seem interested in sex. Cosima tried, before, but Delphine always shot her down, worried that it might be too much. Maybe she’s still worried, because the first time they slept together, it wasn’t all that great. But Cosima’s already told her like a hundred times that wasn’t why she didn’t come to see her any more. She didn’t want Delphine to see her deteriorate, didn’t want her to see the red droplets in the tissues or hear her gasp for air.

Maybe Delphine was right, though, because it is too much, emotionally, physically, but Cosima _wants_ it, wants more than anything else to be close to Delphine right now. She feels better with her around, feels like she doesn’t have to spend so much of her energy convincing people she’s fine, most of all her parents. It’s weird, because she used to think she’d never be able to let Delphine see her like that, but now it’s where she gets her strength from, from just being with her. With Delphine, it doesn’t matter that Cosima is afraid, feels fear as deeply as never before. Delphine never points out her tears, she just holds her and kisses her and tells her she loves her, as if that might save her; and in a way, it does.

Delphine wipes her tears away, kisses her gently, her hand running through Cosima’s hair. She wanted to get dreads this summer, for college, but then she got diagnosed and figured that it wouldn’t matter. Now she’s almost glad she didn’t, because the way Delphine’s massaging her scalp feels heavenly.

“Promise me something else,” Cosima breathes, moving her head a little so her nose brushes against Delphine’s. They’re lying on their sides, facing each other, Delphine’s leg thrown over Cosima’s. She shivers, the thin layer of sweat cooling her body. _This is nice_ , Cosima thinks, wondering if it might be possible to stay in this moment forever.

“Hm, what?” Delphine murmurs, opening her eyes slowly.

“After my funeral,” Cosima starts and quickly presses her hand into Delphine’s spine to keep her close when she wants to pull back, “you go back to France.”

“Cosima-”

“You go back to France and you do whatever you want to. You said you were finding yourself, it’s time to go be yourself where you belong,” Cosima breathes, fighting against the tears. Delphine stares at her, stares into her eyes. There are no tears in them, just sadness.

“But I belong with you,” she answers finally, and for once, Cosima doesn’t know what to say to that.

* * *

“This is bullshit,” Cosima mutters, pushing the bowl away.

“Actually, it’s soup,” Delphine quips, earning herself a glare. She pauses, setting down her own bowl and lifting the tray off the bed.

“My mother is going to kill you,” Cosima croaxes. Delphine just shrugs.

“I’ll eat it later.”

She’s done that before, when Cosima wasn’t feeling like eating. It’s their shared secret, but now swallowing is starting to become really tough, and her parents have noticed how much weight Cosima’s been losing. Her mother is hovering at her shoulder now whenever she makes Cosima something to eat. The only way to escape is to be with Delphine, and Delphine doesn’t force her to continue eating.

She climbs into Cosima’s bed, between her and the wall. Cosima turns, facing the room, and Delphine snuggles up behind her. A soft kiss gets breathed onto one of her vertebrates, and she feels Delphine’s hand sneak under her shirt, pausing over her stomach. She doesn’t like to touch her upper body, now that Cosima’s ribs are so easy to feel under her skin.

“You know, I had this weird dream last night,” Delphine tells her, her voice warm and filling Cosima’s head.

“Huh?” she breathes, attempting to keep her eyes open.

“We were at the aquarium,” her girlfriend begins retelling the images in her head last night, and Cosima can feel herself grow heavier and heavier. Delphine’s voice is soothing, balm for her soul and weary body, and she allows herself to be pulled under, allows her body to relax and to finally sleep.

When she wakes up, she finds Delphine still in bed with her, face turned into the pillow now. There are tear tracks on her cheeks and a tissue in her hand. Cosima’s never seen her cry since she told her about the diagnosis. Sometimes she feels guilty about that, about being so weak and being so afraid that Delphine doesn’t think she can cry when Cosima is awake.

* * *

There is clatter coming from the kitchen and Cosima flinches at the sound of the doors of the cupboard being slammed shut.

_“What even were they thinking?!”_ her mother’s infuriated voice carries over to her and Delphine sitting on the stairs. The French girl flinches, hiding her face between her hands as Cosima’s father replies, his voice too low for them to hear.

_“I don’t care how old they are!”_ her mother shouts. Cosima swallows, reaches out to rub her hand over Delphine’s tense shoulders. Her girlfriend gives her a worried look, but she shakes her head, even though it is marked by another stifled cough.

_“She should know better.”_

_“I’m glad she didn’t talk her out of it,”_ Cosima’s father replies finally. It makes Delphine perk up and Cosima’s hand squeezes gently.

“So am I,” she husks, her throat sore from the coughing fit earlier. They had been in the living room, going through her dad’s record collection. There had been one Cosima had wanted to put on for Delphine, and it had ended with an impromptu dance party. She’d taken off her oxygen to be able to move around and her and Delphine had been goofing off for God knows how long, until her mother came home and walked right in on Cosima suddenly doubling over, blood spilling from her lips. Her ears are still ringing from the terrified scream Delphine let out, how she clutched at her, pleaded with her to breathe… But even with the attack, she doesn’t regret one single second of the dancing, absolutely not. Though she can see how Delphine is beating herself up about it, and her mother does not help any.

_“They are teenagers, they need to let off some steam-”_

_“Cosima nearly died!”_

_“Cosima_ is _dying!”_

This time, they both flinch. Delphine presses her hand over her mouth and swallows before she scoots up another step to sit next to Cosima, to be able to wrap her arm around her frail shoulders.

“ _Je t’aime_ ,” she whispers softly into her ear, jumping when they hear footsteps approaching.

“You need to leave,” Cosima’s mother immediately zeros in on Delphine, who blanches.

“ _Non_ ,” she shakes her head, beginning to tremble. “ _Non_ , please, I promise, nothing like this will ever happen again-”

“ _Leave_. Now.”

Cosima’s father places his hands on his wife’s shoulders, squeezing so hard she can see the knuckles turning white. Her mother does not move an inch, still glaring at Delphine, waiting for her to obey, to disappear.

“We are not throwing you out, Delphine,” he says, eyes flickering towards his daughter. “But maybe you two want to spend some time alone, at your place?”

_“Are you insane?”_

“Come, Cosima, Delphine can help you pack something, I’ll drive you over in a few minutes,” her father talks over her mom, and Cosima gets up as quickly as she can, pulling the tubes out and scrambling up the stairs. She has an oxygen concentrator machine in her room and there is one downstairs, too, providing some mobility and allowing her to walk around without having to pull an oxygen tank with her all the time.

She’s just gotten the cannula in again when Delphine puts down a bag on Cosima’s bed for her to put her things into and starts to gather her own belongings. Cosima never noticed before how much stuff that actually doesn’t belong to her has accumulated in her room. Watching Delphine put it together makes her afraid, afraid that she is going to leave her, afraid that she will be all alone, in the end-

“Hey,” Delphine picks up on her mood, or perhaps its more Cosima’s lack of movement. “If you don’t want to come over-”

“I do,” Cosima shakes her head, unable to help sniffling at the tears pricking at her eyes. Delphine watches her before she pulls her own bag closed and goes over to Cosima’s dresser to pick a few outfits.

“What are you doing?” Cosima asks, wiping at the moisture in her eyes when she sees Delphine go through PJs.

“I have never seen you in these,” she says, throwing them in the direction of the bed.

“That’s because I haven’t worn them in like, three years,” Cosima frowns at the outfit, standing and walking over. She pushes the drawer of her underwear shut with her hip, barely leaving Delphine enough time to pull her hands out.

“Hey!”

“I am not letting you pick out my underwear,” Cosima shakes her head. “No way.”

Delphine pouts, drawing a laugh from her. “You picked mine,” she tries, but Cosima only shakes her head again.

“You asked me if the bra was showing through your top. Totally different thing,” she argues. Delphine squints at her before she relents, taking a step away from the dresser, hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Fine,” she allows, getting the bag and holding it out to Cosima, “pack your own stuff, then.”

It takes them almost two hours to pack their stuff, get over to Delphine’s place, and for Cosima’s dad to set up the machine. They have a fresh oxygen tank around, in case the power goes out, and it takes Cosima’s dad three tries of saying goodbye before he actually manages to leave.

“Wow,” Cosima exhales, dropping to the couch. Her legs are shaky, she feels all fuzzy and exhausted. Delphine’s hand on her forehead is warm and soft and she relaxes into the touch.

“You can take a nap while I make dinner,” she  mutters, placing a soft kiss to Cosima’s shoulder.

“Not hungry,” Cosima shakes her head. It’s easier to deny the feeling of needing to eat than to admit that she cannot get anything past the lump in her throat, anyway. Swallowing is getting kinda hard and she doesn’t like doing it more than she absolutely has to. She knows her father packed those high-fat nutrition supplement drinks the doctors prescribed her, and she knows that while her mother insists on Cosima drinking them, Delphine would never even dream of forcing her to do anything she doesn’t want to.

Maybe that’s why she loves Delphine so much, because she seems like the one person that actually _listens_ to Cosima. The only one who _gets_ her, gets what she wants and what she absolutely does not want to even consider, and she always seems to know what to say or do to help. Like today, when she didn’t argue that Cosima should not be exercising, but got up and danced with her, encouraged her and moved her body alongside hers. Delphine certainly tries to be reasonable, but when Cosima argues back, she always gives in.

Even now, Delphine sighs, flopping down to rest her head in Cosima’s lap. “You know,” she starts, picking up Cosima’s hand to toy with her fingers, “I want to be with you, for as long as possible. But after today, if your parents come to pick you up and you have lost even more weight, they might actually force me to stay away. I don’t want that, Cosima.”

Cosima swallows thickly, gaze trimmed on their fingers. The nail polish on Delphine’s nails has started cracking and peeling off. She’s never noticed that before.

“Okay,” she relents. “I’ll eat. If you let me paint your nails.”

Delphine furrows her brows, inspecting her hands.

“No crazy colors,” she says, but Cosima quickly shakes her head.

“You pick what I eat, I get to chose the color,” she argues. She’s silent for a moment before Delphine sighs, her body relaxing further into the couch and Cosima’s thighs, so heavy Cosima thinks it must be painful for her, the press of her thin thigh and bone against Delphine’s back.

“Fine,” her girlfriend agrees, pulling Cosima’s hand down to press a soft kiss to the skin.

* * *

Her breath’s been rattling in her chest the whole night. She barely managed to close her eyes for a second, moving around restlessly. She knows Delphine didn’t get any sleep, either, the bed too small for the two of them to lie comfortably next to each other with Cosima moving around like that.

“Hold me,” she murmurs and feels Delphine’s arm wrap around her middle gently as she sits up a little to search her face.

“You okay?” she asks her, voice soft. Cosima swallows and shakes her head, chest constricting. Delphine’s eyes widen and she moves to get up, but Cosima’s fingers curl into her arm, hold it in place.

“Don’t leave me,” she pleads, fear taking hold of her. Delphine hesitates, eyes flickering to the door of her room.

“Your parents-”

“Don’t leave me,” Cosima repeats and Delphine swallows before she nods, lying back down. Cosima turns, slowly, to be able to face her. Stares at Delphine’s face, features blurry from her lack of glasses and the tears brimming in her eyes.

“I love you,” she presses out, coughing lightly. Delphine brushes her hair from her face, her fingers gently tracing Cosima’s cheeks.

“I love you, too,” she replies, her lips soft and warm as she kisses Cosima’s forehead. “ _Je t’aime, mon amour_ ,” Delphine adds in French, whispered against Cosima’s lips before she brushes her lips over them, gently, an open-mouthed kiss.

“I’m sorry,” Cosima breathes, pain radiating out from her chest. “That we didn’t have more time…”

“Cosima,” Delphine shakes her head, and there’s a tear running down her face. “I am so, so _lucky_ , to have met you. To have been able to hold you, to have been allowed to spend time with you.”

“It’s not enough,” she protests, shaking her head in anger. She wanted more, wanted to much longer with Delphine, wanted months and years and decades of growing up and growing old together. It’s not fair, it’s not fair that they only met when Cosima was already dying, it’s not fair that they only had one summer, it’s not fair that Delphine loves her so much when Cosima has to go.

“It never would’ve been,” Delphine whispers, resting her forehead against Cosima’s. She’s so tired, exhausted, this is all taking such an effort and Cosima just wants to sleep. She wants to stop, stop fighting, stop being angry, stop being sad, but she doesn’t know how to, and she’s afraid to, because she knows that wherever she’s going, Delphine won’t be coming with her.

Her breath hitches in her throat and a gurgle escapes her. Delphine’s hold on her tightens.

“Do you want me to get your parents?” she asks her, voice barely audible in the room and over Cosima’s strained breathing. Cosima shakes her head.

“No. Wanna be. With you,” she gets out, drawing a ragged breath. Delphine nods against her forehead, fingers trailing through Cosima’s hair, massaging her scalp.

“Okay,” Delphine breathes, murmuring words of comfort. Most of them are declarations of love and how she will never, ever forget her. She reminds Cosima of the trip to the beach in the beginning, when she was able to breathe without needing extra oxygen but Delphine already knew. Reminds her of their first kiss and lets her hand trail over Cosima’s body. It’s intended to sooth, but her fingers are trembling.

“I don’t want to leave,” Cosima breathes and Delphine clenches her eyes shut, tears falling from them as she lets out a soft sniffle.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she responds, cradling her face in her hands. “I am selfish but I don’t want to let you go. I don’t think I will ever love anyone as much as I love you.”

It’s oddly comforting, in a very selfish way. She doesn’t want Delphine to be sad, wants her to be happy, find happiness, but a part of Cosima is so terrified of being forgotten that Delphine’s words are calming, soothing that fear.

“I’m tired,” Cosima admits and feels Delphine’s body shake with a silent sob.

“It’s okay,” she breathes, stroking Cosima’s cheek slowly. “You can close your eyes.” she whispers. Cosima’s eyes flutter shut but she forces them open again.

“Will you stay?” she asks, heart clenching in agony as she knows what she’s demanding. “Until it’s over?”

“I’ll stay forever,” Delphine replies, closing her eyes as Cosima wipes a tear off her cheek, hand shaking from the effort.

“I really loved you,” she husks, eyelids closing again. Delphine kisses her again, salty tears on her lips.

“I really loved you, too,” the blonde whispers. Cosima’s lips tug into a smile and she gropes for Delphine’s hand to entwine their fingers again. Feels Delphine give a soft squeeze as she rests them between their chests. She’s so tired, it’s so dark and cold-

“I’m here, it’s okay, Cosima,” Delphine murmurs when she jerks, a gasp falling from her lips. “You’re not alone, I promise I will stay with you.”

She tugs her closer, forehead resting against Cosima’s again, her hold on Cosima’s hand steady. Her fingers are running through her hair, carefully, smoothing it away from her face. The touch is soft, warm, and Cosima starts to feel like she’s floating, floating, floating...

* * *

Her parents are surprised to find her standing there, on their doorstep, bag slewn over her shoulder. Her mother wraps her arms around her and starts crying, chiding her and thanking God that her daughter is finally back, finally with them again, that she is alive and in her arms again.

She makes it all through the afternoon, until dinner, when her father asks if she met any nice boys. Her fork clatters to the plate and the sobs are coming before the tears do, an ache filling her entire being. She’s felt so hollow since that morning, when she held Cosima as she slowly slipped away from her, but now she’s aching, every bone in her body is filled with a longing for which there is no remedy.

They never ask what made her change her mind about med school, and Delphine never tells them. There is something about what she had with Cosima that makes her want to hold all those moments close, that makes her want to keep everything about them to herself, because it feels like with every word that leaves her mouth, there’s a piece of Cosima that goes with it, slips away into thin air, never to be recovered.

She doesn’t smoke any more. Quit in the US, after Cosima told her. Cold turkey. Sometimes, she feels the need for a cigarette, but then she remembers, remembers Cosima and the oxygen and the nasal tubes, the feeling of the plastic when Delphine kissed her.

When it is time to chose a field, she decides on immunology without hesitation. She already knows she’ll go into research, doesn’t have it in her to accompany people on their way to meet death. She already did that once, during the summer when she was nineteen and living in the United States. She knows all about death and how there never seems to be enough time for everything you still want to do.

Her dissertation is about host-parasite relationships, because it was an interesting topic, and because autoimmune disease was not something Delphine felt like she’d be able to deal with writing about for such a long time.

The dedication on the title page is a surprise to her parents, who expected to find their own names on it. Instead, it says _Cosima Niehaus_ on there, black ink on white paper.

_J’ai tenue ma promesse._


	5. office job AU

Mondays are stupid. She fucking hates Mondays. Especially after a weekend of partying. Especially after a birthday party that goes well into the wee hours of Sunday morning. Especially after hooking up with someone at that party and having amazing sex most of Sunday, before quietly stealing away like, well, not a thief in the night, because it was only like, five in the afternoon, but still.

She freaking hates Mondays. Especially when her hook-up is the French liaison from the Paris office. Especially because she kind of maybe already has two strikes and the next time corporate learns that she hooked up with a colleague again, she’s sure she’ll be fired over “office misconduct” or some crap. Totally not her fault if other people do not understand that having sex doesn’t mean that you have to start dating.

She absolutely wholeheartedly hates Mondays and wants to set the entire day on fire when her boss informs her she wants the numbers for this quarter, like, yesterday. And the woman knows numbers are not her friend. That’s not what she does, she does branding and market analysis, not sales.

“So, this totally crazy thing happened,” she starts, putting on a bright smile she hopes is soothing. The woman the cubicle belongs to keeps her eyes trained on her monitor, fingers hurrying over her keyboard. “Uh, Duncan, she, wants the sales numbers, in a presentation, with a bow or something, I don’t know. She gave me like, three hours tops.”

“Did she?”

“Yeah,” Cosima nods, resting against the desk. Any acknowledgment of her presence is a good sign. At least she will take it for that. “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but numbers, they aren’t, like, my thing.”

“Really? You don’t say!”

Her smile falters and she squints lightly at the puppy eyes the blonde woman gives her.

“Are you messing with me?” she asks outright. Delphine raises an eyebrow.

“What do you want, Cosima?” she asks in return, crossing her arms as she rests back against the office chair.

She lets out a sigh, fingers going up to her dreads.

“Okay, I get that leaving like that, it was kind of a dick move,” she admits.

“That would be one way of putting it,” Delphine tilts her head, nodding at someone passing her cubicle.

“I’m sorry, I just… panicked,” Cosima sighs, lowering her voice. “They find out I hooked up with someone again, I am going to get my ass handed to me.”

There is something that shifts behind Delphine’s eyes, her eyebrows twitch briefly before she shakes her head.

“Go do your presentation,” she tells her, voice flat as Delphine returns to her computer screen and the figures on it. It makes Cosima recoil slightly. They weren’t the closest friends before this weekend, but they got along pretty great. Saturday night at the party, Cosima found proof that she hadn’t been going crazy, Delphine had been flirting with her for a while, she hadn’t imagined all that.

“Wait, are you pissed with me?”

“No,” Delphine shakes her head. “I feel honored, that you chose me as a pit-stop on your way of banging yourself through the building,” she spits, getting up from her chair. “Excuse me, I have to get my print-outs,” she mutters, pushing past Cosima and leaving her to stand there, gaping, wondering if that just really happened.

* * *

“In case you were wondering, she didn’t fire me,” Cosima breaks the icy silence in the elevator five hours later. Delphine makes a sound in her throat that she isn’t entirely sure if it’s a snort or a cough.

“Too bad,” the French woman mutters, checking her watch as the elevator continues its descent.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Cosima suddenly snaps, ire rising. Okay, yeah, maybe corporate did have a point about not shitting where you eat, but goddammit, how on earth had she been supposed to know that Frenchie would suddenly develop claws after a good shag? Fucking Europeans, man.

“Maybe I do not appreciate being a notch in your bedpost!” Delphine snaps back, whirling around to glare at her.

“For the record,” Cosima hears herself say before she can stop herself, “it was your bed. And couch. And kitchen counter.”

“Yes, because in your own apartment, you wouldn’t have been able to run away,” Delphine shakes her head, drawing a deep breath and letting it out her nose. The elevator has stopped, the doors have opened and already closed again and still they are standing here, glaring at each other.

“Fuck!” the French woman suddenly exclaims, her free hand going into her hair. She bunches it up before she lets it fall back down, jaw working.

“That we did,” Cosima mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose. She isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do now. Apologize for leaving? Apologize for kissing her in the first place? But it’s not like Delphine is innocent in this, she practically devoured her at the club, and it was Delphine that suggested they take this elsewhere.

“Look,” she starts again, taking a tentative step towards the other woman, “I _am_ sorry. I shouldn’t have left like this, I just thought… it would be easier. Less awkward. I mean, we’ve known each other for months now, and suddenly, we bang and…” she trails off with a feeble shrug.

“I have a question,” Delphine says, her voice soft. “Did it matter at all to you, that you were sleeping with _me_? Or did you just look for some mindless fun, a quick fuck, and would’ve gone with anyone that night?”

Cosima opens her mouth to protest but then stops. It’s a trick question, isn’t it? If she says it didn’t matter to her, it’s gonna ruin any chance of them rescuing their tentative friendship. If she says it did matter, well, it’s basically admitting that she likes Delphine, in a way that is thoroughly inappropriate for the workplace. And truthfully, Cosima doesn’t know if she should lie to her now, after having already been such a jerk.

“Look-”

“Answer the question, Cosima,” Delphine shakes her head. When Cosima remains silent, unable to find the words, unable to decide which answer is going to do less harm to them, she slowly nods.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Delphine breathes. She leans over, fingers hammering against the button to open the doors of the elevator. Cosima watches, watches her turn and leave, feeling numb all of a sudden. There’s defeat in her step, creeping up Delphine’s spine to her shoulders to slump them forward. The elevator doors start closing again and Cosima’s hand shoots out, pushing them back as she stumbles from the contraption.

“Delphine, wait!” she calls out, hurrying after the other woman, mind and heart racing to find a way to somehow fix this mess.


	6. figure skating AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't explicitly stated, but this chapter plays during the 2014 Olympics. The results are from those competitions, even if the rest (even the schedule) is (fan) fiction.

The thing about dating someone who’s in the public eye is that it gets really tiring to have to deal with reporters sometimes. Especially those fucking tabloid paparazzis. Those she would like to skin on her worst days.

The thing about dating someone who’s kind of famous when you’re yourself in the public eye is that the amount of scrutiny doesn’t just double. Before their relationship was revealed, Cosima could deal with the reporters and stupid question most of the time. Now, though, it feels like there are a hundred more of those incredibly intrusive people and she wants to punch a lot of them in the face at times. Or somewhere else entirely.

Which, if she did, would probably get her kicked from the national team, and that is absolutely not something she wants. So she draws slow breaths, smiles, ignores the invasive questions and makes sure to never ever allow one of the people who ask intimate questions to interview her again. That’s actually kind of funny, really, because the news networks are tripping over their feet to find someone who does not manage to offend her (it’s not that hard, really, just skip the relationship questions altogether) so they get to interview her after her performances. Maybe she should not enjoy seeing those criticizing buffoons in suits sweating so much, but hey, she’s only human and payback, now that has a taste so sweet she’s about to become a craving addict.

“Cosima,” Alison mutters, nudging her side briefly. She follows her team members line of sight and feels her brows furrowing before she smooths them out again, eyes flickering away from the Canadian team. She knows that there an awful lot of cameras trained on them right now and that there are people scrutinizing the tiniest movements of their faces, so she best not let her irritation over the fact that Delphine Cormier is currently sitting in Alain DeMarco’s lap show.

“What are they doing here?” Alison asks, causing Cosima to shrug.

“Supporting their team, maybe?” she suggests. It’s why she’s here, too, because Paul is competing in the Men’s Free Skating segment, and because their coaches thinks that with the rumors of this Olympic’s team not getting along too well behind the scenes, it’s important to show the public the opposite in front of the cameras.

They find their seats on the stands, which have a nice view, of the rink and of the Canadian team a few rows down. Cosima tries not to let it get to her, but the thing is, she’s barely seen Delphine at all during the competitions. They’re either too tired, or on the rink, getting some last minute practice in. And it’s different. Cosima only competes in the Ladies Free Skating and the Free Program Ladies categories. She only goes solo, there are no rumors about her getting along a little too well with her dance partner. Which is exactly what is happening with Delphine and Alain this year. They’ve been dancing together for almost a decade, practiced together even before that, and it’s showing in their interactions. They have an incredible familiarity that only comes with siblings. Or lovers. And since they aren’t the former, the media is sure they have to be the latter, or at least at some point used to be. That Delphine is in some ways encouraging those speculations… Cosima should be livid, maybe, but the truth is, she’s just tired and only a little angry. Mostly she’s sad. And worried. That there might be some truth to what she’s trying very hard not to read in the rainbow press.

Despite her height, Delphine is pure grace in ice skates, her movements are fluid and there is a certain ease to them that made her catch Cosima’s eye when they were competing at the World Championship years ago. It wasn’t love at first sight, but the US and Canadian teams have usually been close, so they hung out behind the scenes. They became friends over the years, competing with each other more than against each other.

Cosima’s sexuality had been a focus of discussion at some point. She remembers the day she woke up to a former teenage lover claiming that they’d had an affair and it being all over the news, two days after the roster for the 2010 Olympics had been announced. She’d been afraid of having her name withdrawn as a consequence but ultimately decided to hell with it. Outing herself, even if it had been forced, might’ve been the best thing she’s done, because it took such an incredible amount of pressure to be someone she absolutely isn’t off her back. She didn’t have to hide part of herself anymore, and that filled her with relief more than anything.

It had happened during the 2012 World Figure Skating Championships in Nice. She’d tried to get some last minute practice in and stumbled across Delphine doing laps on the rink. They’d started talking again, raced each other and then tried to impress the other with a few jumps, giving out ratings. Somewhere along the line, the tone had changed from friendly to flirty and teasing and before either of them had know what was happening, they’d been kissing, hands grappling for hold on the border of the rink as their skates threatened to go out from under them.

That had been two years ago. They’d kept it a secret at first, of course informing their coaches and putting a gag order on their teams. Delphine had been scared of someone finding out, which Cosima could understand. Even though the overwhelming majority of the response to her coming out had been great, she had received some ugly comments for it, the team had even lost a sponsor over refusing to remove her from the roster. It had taken an entire season before anyone outside their inner circle had found out. They’d announced the results of a competition and Cosima had narrowly made third place. Delphine had jumped up and down beside her and hugged her. By then, their friendship was well known, but no one, even Cosima, had expected Delphine to kiss her in that moment, in front of numerous cameras trained on them and broadcasting the event. She’d seemed shocked at her own actions, but Cosima had grinned at her and hugged her, turning her face into her neck to make sure the cameras wouldn’t catch the movements of her mouth as she told her it was okay. From then on, they hadn’t tried to cover their relationship up any more. There were boundaries, of course; they made sure not to put on a show for the cameras and keep the displays to a minimum, but that was more because they both did not want their private lives dragged out for everyone to see. Before Cosima, Delphine had guarded her privacy and love life meticulously, the press hadn’t even figured out who she’d been dating at what point, and while Cosima hadn’t gone to the same length, at least not after her outing, she had been very clear that while her professional life was free to be scrutinized, she would not tolerate an invasion of the privacy of the people she spent her time with, not her parents nor her significant others.

Cosima’s mind is far from watching the performances on the ice happening now, barely registering the music and only looking at the scoreboard for an evaluation of what went down on the rink. Paul doesn’t fare too shabby, really not, but in the end, it’s Japan, Canada and Kazakhstan that snag the medals.

She does realize that Delphine disappears earlier than the last performance ends, sees Alain remain seated. It’s a cue for Cosima to duck out, too, so they can have a minute or two in private. But instead of getting up and telling Ali to give Paul a hug from her, Cosima remains seated, her butt glued to the blue plastic seat, hands clutching the edge. If Alison notices anything weird, she doesn’t say so, and neither does Mrs S, one of their coaches. She does give Cosima a particularly long look when they show up backstage, hugging and congratulating the guys. But something about her overly bright demeanor makes the older woman keep her mouth shut. They learned a long time ago that pushing Cosima will only end in her closing off, so they leave her alone to make her own decisions. To run headfirst into her own downfall.

Which follows rather swiftly. Only twenty-five hours later, in the Free Program Ladies segment. Alison scored pretty high and so did the others, so there is actually a medal winning position in the cards for them. All Cosima has to do is get through her part without any major hitches.

But her head’s been screwed on kinda wonky since yesterday and she’s having a hard time focusing. The music sounds off to her and she knows she’s not matching her steps perfectly.

The second her skates leave the ice, Cosima knows she screwed up. She knows she’s not gonna be able to land this, knows her momentum is off. So instead of trying to rescue it, she leans forward even more, hoping to break the worst of her fall. The ice is hard and cold as she strikes it and then there’s the impact of her hitting the border with the back of her head first before her back crashes into it, making her see stars and knocking the wind completely out of her as her entire body slams into it.

The music continues on, but the pain in her left arm is blinding and she feels like she cannot breathe, but that might be because she’s already crying, slowly curling in on herself.

“Cosima!”

The hand on her hip is warm and when she opens her eyes, she can see Mrs. S kneeling down beside her, worry written all over her face.

“Fuck,” is all she can press out as the woman waves over the paramedics. Her team must be going crazy with worry right now. The music has stopped, and either they didn’t have to say it or Cosima missed the request for quiet over the speakers, but the audience is dead silent. It’s eery, usually during performances there’s the music and the applause and the silence is all excited. Now it’s just a shocked, stunned, worrisome pause in which everyone seems to be holding their breaths.

“You know what day it is?” the medic asks her, holding her head steady to make sure she does not move it, in case she hurt her neck . Of course she knows what day it is: the day she cost her team a medal. She’s not stupid. Only really banged up, body and ego bruised beyond belief. Fuck ice skating, to hell with relationships, and fuck Alain DeMarco in particular.

* * *

She gets to watch the evening news. It’s all filled with footage of Alison covering her mouth in shock as Mrs. S leaps from her seat. Cosima knows that the woman jumped up the second she struck the ice. Someone with her experience knew that Cosima wouldn’t be able to get up and complete the run.

She sees a shaken Delphine chew on her thumb, bouncing on the balls of her feet before the footage cuts and they show her hurrying from the cameras, face turned away from the prominent angles. But even like that, Cosima can tell she’s been crying.

“You are awake,” Delphine smiles as she walks into the room, a ridiculous bouquet of flowers in her hands. Cosima mutes the TV and scoots up the a little on the bed. Or at least she tries to, until her arm reminds her that is a stupid idea.

“I’m hungry but they’re not letting me eat,” she complains, accepting the gentle kiss on her forehead before Delphine goes to close the door to give them some privacy. “You shouldn’t have,” Cosima mutters, motioning at the flowers. They do look kind of nice, but they’re not going to help, not with the pain or the humiliation.

“I didn’t. They’re from the team,” Delphine shrugs, Quebecois accent making the English sound a little funny. Cosima’s always found it endearing.

“I’d ask if I should kiss it well, but your coach told me it would take a bit more than that,” she sighs, sitting down in the chair Felix sat in earlier, when Cosima got the news she’d need surgery. She’d really hoped to avoid it, but the more often she sees her fall, the more amazed she is that she walked away relatively unscathed. It’s not the impact on the ice that has her worried and that made everyone’s blood run cold, but the speed at which she hid the border of the rink.

“Don’t mention that,” she shakes her head, neck protesting at the motion. “Just, no skating talk. At all.”

Delphine nods, slowly. She watches her face before she reaches out to take Cosima’s right hand, fingers entwining.

“Am I allowed to tell you to never, ever do that again?”

“Skate?”

“Cosima…” Delphine sighs, turning her face and hiding it in her hand briefly before she kisses the skin of Cosima’s. “You scared me.”

There are impressive videos to be found on the internet, with compilations of the worst ice skating accidents. Many of them are pair crashes, skates cutting partners, the women being thrown during lifts when the man’s legs go out from under him or he loses his grip. Between the two of them, Cosima would’ve almost bet that Delphine was going be the one ending up in the hospital, not her.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, suddenly feeling sheepish at the blatant worry in her lover’s eyes. “I should’ve said something. I knew I wasn’t really focussing, but I thought I would be able to manage, you know? I mean I’ve done this performance so many times, I can do it practically in my sleep.”

Delphine’s brows knit and she leans back, searching Cosima’s face.

“Please tell me this is not about Alain and me again,” she sighs finally, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I have told you-”

“I know what you have told me,” Cosima bites back. She’s in pain, it was a long day and she’s just so fucking tired. “But I also have eyes. You were sitting in his lap, Delphine. So much for trying to put those rumors to rest.”

“I wasn’t sitting-” Delphine starts before her eyes widen. “I have done this, a hundred times, with other people on the team. It never bothered you before.”

“Because you weren’t avoiding me then!” Cosima exclaims, feeling the tears burn in her eyes. She reaches up to wipe them away angrily as Delphine stands, pacing at the foot of her bed. Her hands are in her blond curls, bunching them up as she shakes her head.

“You are unbelievable,” she mutters, pausing, her arms falling down. She takes a slow breath before crossing the space between the foot of the bed and Cosima. Then her hands are on her face, pulling Cosima up into a breathtaking kiss.

“I love you, you dumb idiot,” she murmurs against Cosima’s lips, looking into her eyes when she lets her go. “Alain is a friend, a very good friend, but I would never, ever, do anything with him. I don’t want him. I want _you_ ,” she continues, stroking Cosima’s cheek. “And I swear to God, if you ever do something like this again instead of talking to me, I will make sure we get that medal before your team does.”

Her laugh is teary, but Cosima has given up on hiding them, or the sniffle leaving her at Delphine’s words.

“That’s the first time you’ve said that you love me,” she mumbles, feeling herself blush. Delphine blinks at her, her head tilting to the side as she sits down on the edge of Cosima’s bed.

“I didn’t realize,” she whispers, fingers ghosting over the back of Cosima’s hand. “Je t’aime, Cosima.”

It’s weird, but somehow, it feels like it has even more meaning in French. Cosima’s heart gives a jolt and she’s suddenly feeling a little light-headed. Though that might be the concussion. Hopefully not, because puking on Delphine would kinda ruin the moment.

“I, I love you, too,” she mumbles, giving her girlfriend a grin. “And I’m sorry I’m not going to be able to watch your choreography.”

Delphine waves her hand, shaking her head.

“It’s okay. You just concentrate on getting better, _d’accord_?”

“ _Oui, d’accord_ ,” Cosima nods enthusiastically, groaning at the stab of pain that flashes through her head at the motion. Delphine strokes her cheek and kisses her forehead again. She stays for another two hours before the hospital throws her out, and if Cosima had been paying attention to the time, she’d have sent her on her way before that. No matter how much she might enjoy Delphine’s company and how much it takes her mind off the fact that she will be getting surgery in less than fifteen hours, Delphine needs to rest before the competition tomorrow.

Alison texts, and Paul, and Felix sends her a picture of their dinner, which does not look at all appetizing, with an “I don’t think you’re missing much” comment accompanying it. She barely sleeps at all that night and doesn’t have anyone to hold her hand as she’s wheeled into the theater, because everyone is at the competition, either as moral support or because they are competing, and it wouldn’t have been fair to ask them to be with her instead.

When she comes to afterwards, it’s to an exhausted Delphine resting her head on her arms which lay on Cosima’s bed. She’s still in her skating dress, someone just draped a blanket over her shoulders so she would not be too cold. Her make-up is smudged, hair coming undone from the tight knot it was in.

“Who won?” Cosima asks her, voice raspy. Her mouth feels as if it has been filled with cotton, the pain in her arm has turned from a sharp stab whenever she moves it to a burn all the time. Delphine blinks her eyes open, confusion on her features before her lips tug into a smile.

“Hey,” she greets her, straightening up and stretching a little. Cosima hears her back pop and Delphine gives a soft moan at the relief before she leans over and captures her lips.

“How are you feeling?” she asks her, searching Cosima’s face, hand drifting in the direction of the emergency call button.

“Tired,” Cosima admits, casting a look around. “Who won?” she repeats her question.

“Alison and Felix,” Delphine tells her and Cosima’s face splits into a huge grin as she does a fist pump.

“Yes!” she cheers, flinching when it rocks her shoulder. “Sorry,” she apologizes to her girlfriend, but Delphine shakes her head.

“It’s okay, they won fair and square. Alain and I made second, we kicked Russia’s butt,” Delphine grins, laughing with Cosima before she checks her watch.

“You gotta leave?” Cosima asks her, mood dropping.

“I’m sorry,” her girlfriend apologizes, kissing her again. “I will be back later, but the team wants to celebrate and I kind of promised-”

“It’s okay,” Cosima waves her off before pulling her in for another kiss.

“Do you want to be alone?” Delphine murmurs against her lips, resting her forehead against Cosima’s. “Or can I send the others in?”

When Cosima’s eyes widen in surprise, the blonde laughs softly, shaking her head.

“You didn’t think they would miss celebrating their victory with you, did you?” she teases her. There’s another kiss on her cheek and the promise to try and bring her some cake before Delphine leaves. Cosima takes a moment to close her eyes and then her team mates fill the room, all excited and happy. Alison hugs her, sending sharp stabs of pain through Cosima’s arm, and Mrs. S has to pull her back a little to give Cosima some space. Felix is already well on his way of getting drunk and Paul doesn’t seem to be the most sober person, either.

Felix jokes that they had to at least get one medal out of this, and it makes her feel bad for a few seconds, but then Alison procures a DVD and a laptop. Of course she would record the whole TV broadcast. They huddle together, Ali and Mrs. S on the bed with her and watch the performances from the teams, making comments and pointing out mistakes or praising some people’s techniques. When the Canadian team rolls around, Cosima claims she’s tired and needs a break. The others take a few moments, there is some feeble protest from Felix before they say their goodbyes and leave.

Alone, she steels herself before continuing to watch Delphine and Alain. It’s a wonderful performance, absolutely magnificent. She’s rarely seen such a stunning display and that it’s her girlfriend doing all these moves with ease fills her with pride. When the segment is over, Cosima goes back to the start of the performance to watch it again, her eyes glued to Delphine’s form moving on the ice. By the fourth time, her eyes are dropping and before the fifth run, Cosima has fallen asleep to her girlfriend being lifted into the air.


	7. youtube celebrities AU

People keep commenting on her videos talking about this other girl. She tilts her head at a couple of comments and ignores them in favor of trying to explain another fascinating thing about science. But the comments keep showing up and they are almost doubling in number with every new video. So she decides to check the other girl out.

First off, the girl is talking way too fast. And Youtube’s automated subtitles do nothing to help in that regard. It takes her a few videos to be able to follow. Delphine scrunches up her nose a little, hides a laugh behind her hand. It’s late, her boyfriend is sleeping, she should be in bed. But here she is, watching videos on Youtube, of a fellow “science nerd”, as _HellaScience_ puts it.

In the channel info, she finds a link to another account by her, where _HellaScience_ , or Cosima, does a video almost daily, just rambling on about her day. She’s nothing like Delphine expected, in a way. She certainly did not envision dark dreads or a nose ring or tattoos. But the huge smile and soft grins Cosima is flashing at the camera fit perfectly with her personality, and so does the fact that she has a cat named Darwin, who’s blind.

For a few weeks, Delphine goes back every day to watch at least one video. They are cheering her up when she feels down, make her giggle at the weird observations and the rambling and the jumping from thought to thought. Cosima’s hands are always moving, sometimes she holds a cup of coffee or tea and almost manages to spill the contents on herself.

After a little over a month, when Baptiste and her break up, she makes an announcement video, showing her face for the first time in a while. There is something that makes her rather self-conscious about the whole thing and watching herself on her screen as she’s recording never helped. She doesn’t go into the details, doesn’t even mention the break-up, only that things are not so great right now, that she is looking for a new apartment, somewhere that will allow cats (there is no way she would ever leave Aldous behind), and has little time to make videos. She doesn’t exactly know what possesses her, but she does mention she finally got around to check out _HellaScience_ ’s videos and found them incredibly educational. Which is the truth, even if the style is not one for Delphine, they are amazing when it comes to content.

Three days later, she has a message in her inbox, from _HellaScience_.

“ _Hi there! This is awkward, but people kept bugging me about watching your videos, and I did, and they are amazing, and they linked me to your most recent one, and I guess I just wanted to say thank you, for the public compliment. If you’re in the San Fran area and need to crash somewhere, like, in case you don’t find a place fast enough, you’re welcome at my place._ ”

It makes Delphine raise an eyebrow.

“ _Bonjour! Thank you for the compliment, too. I really enjoyed hearing you talk, it is rather uplifting. And also thank you for the offer, but I also have a cat and I do not think Aldous would get along well with Darwin. He is a little… peculiar, in that regard. But I really appreciate it._ ”

They write back and forth from then on, exchanging emails and moving to longer messages, even though they write almost daily. Delphine manages to find a new place for herself and her cat, and Aldous sulks with her for almost an entire week. He liked Baptiste, and Delphine almost feels more sorry about doing this to her cat than about the actual break-up. Maybe that just shows how broken their relationship had been, but she doesn’t really want to think about it or examine that particular thought more closely.

She does manage to make it to San Francisco, for a couple of job interviews, and takes Cosima up on her offer. As predicted, Aldous and Darwin are not the best of friends, even though Darwin tries, but Aldous keeps hissing at him and pounces on the other cat when it gets too close to Delphine. Cosima is surprisingly cool about it, offering cuddles to an insecure Darwin before Delphine puts Aldous back in his crate. She hadn’t wanted to leave him at home for the time she’s gone, not entirely trusting her new neighbors to feed him and worried about Aldous rejecting her even more after disappearing on him again.

They make a video together, sharing a cup of coffee on Cosima’s couch, going on about the universe and things, and in the end, they end up talking for over four hours, both having forgotten that the camera was still running. When they finally remember, they both laugh and do another take, Cosima explaining what happened in the first. It’s good to finally meet her in person, and Delphine enjoys her company immensely. There’s a side to Cosima the Internet doesn’t really get to see, the quiet moments in which she seems rather pensive and almost introverted. It throws Delphine a little off at first, but then again it makes sense. No one can be cheerful and happy all the time and it’s good to see that Cosima is human and trusts her enough to let her see that side of her. In turn, Delphine laughs at her jokes, laughs for so long her muscles are sore the next morning, though she doesn’t regret one second of it.

The response to their video online is crazy. Delphine steadfastly ignores the creepy “ _you’re so cute together!_ ” and “ _totally ship it_ ” comments, or she would try to, if they weren’t everywhere. It’s a little disconcerting, to be honest. She’s used to some of it, but that they are doing this with two perfectly straight women is a whole new level of strange and decidedly discomforting.

Only she learns that “perfectly straight” doesn’t apply to Cosima when she comments on one of Delphine’s videos a month or so later, telling people to stop insinuating that there is anything but friendship between her and Delphine. Her exact words are “ _We all know my sexuality, but that does not imply that I want to have sex with every man or woman in sight. Delphine and I are friends and I enjoy this friendship, so I would appreciate it if you guys could back off. She’s been ignoring these comments for a reason and it’s not that we’re hiding anything, it’s because they’re making both of us hella uncomfortable. So quit it._ ”

The next time she sees Cosima in person, when the other woman visits her, is a little awkward in the beginning, but they quickly get over it while cooking together, and by the end of the day, they are both snuggled in Delphine’s huge bed (the result of both of them insisting on taking the couch and not letting the other get anywhere close to it), whispering in the dark, taking longer and longer to respond, until finally Cosima doesn’t reply any more because she has fallen asleep. Delphine watches her briefly before sleep also claims her, feeling warm and fuzzy and at home for the first time in this place.

It takes her four months to upload another video, months filled with one spectacular crisis right after the other, discoveries about herself that Delphine has a hard time wrapping her head around.

When she finally gets around to do another video, it’s her and Cosima again, on Cosima’s couch, sharing another cup of coffee. They both moved into a new apartment with each other, as flatmates, officially. They’ve carefully discussed on how to handle their relationship because of the massive response the previous video of them together got, and while she does not like lying, even to people she has never met, Delphine doesn’t want to tell anyone just yet. Especially because their parents and families have no idea, either.

Halfway through the video, Darwin shows up and jumps into Delphine’s lap before lying down. When she starts petting him, the cat starts purring loud enough for the camera to pick it up. Maybe that is what starts the speculation again online, or perhaps it’s that she’s wearing one of Cosima’s shirts (not intentionally, neither of them even noticed before someone pointed it out in the comment section, though for once, Delphine isn’t bothered by the “how cute <3” following the observation).

It’s almost another month until Cosima hints at some big news on her twitter feed, and Delphine cannot help but shake her head at the other woman. On her birthday, Cosima uploads a picture of them kissing with the caption “ _go wish my beautiful girlfriend a happy birthday_ ”. Within minutes, Delphine’s timeline is blowing up with congratulations and birthday wishes and she’s floored by so much kindness. She’d been afraid of making an announcement like this. Cosima did ask for permission before posting the picture, and Delphine figured to hell with it. She’d grown tired of lying, of ignoring questions about who Cosima’s girlfriend was (even though Delphine’s relationship status still says ‘single’, Cosima had changed her own to ‘in a relationship’ before they had even moved together). At least it’s Delphine’s birthday and she’d planned on spending it away from the Internet, with her girlfriend and their two cats, and later with Cosima’s parents, it would have been a perfect excuse to ignore anything happening online. But now she can’t help but stare at the number of replies and retweets and Cosima laughs before kissing her.

“Told you, nothing to be afraid of. They’re all pretty amazing,” Cosima grins against her lips. “Now will you put your phone down and join me in the shower?”

“If you give me one more minute,” Delphine murmurs, kissing her before turning back to her phone. It takes her a few moments to find the place in her profile, but when she does, she smiles to herself.

_Relationship status: in a relationship with_ HellaScience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> full disclosure: if the "rambling about her day" and "sharing a cup of coffee with someone" videos sound familiar, it might be because I blatantly snagged that idea from Dodger's ["DexterityBonus channel"](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwwByLVM8DlwWQjA0zqeLYA)


	8. queer bookstore AU

_The Reading Nook_ is one of Cosima’s favorite places to hang out. Like, they are this weird little mix between bookshop and coffee house. She first came across it because the LGBTQIAA group on campus held an event there and just completely fell in love with it. Everyone is just so accepting and nice and lets you do whatever you want to. Some people come here to work on school and college stuff, some want to share a cup of coffee with their friends, other want to read and find books, and for some miraculous reason, everyone gets along.

After a few weeks, she’s one of the regulars, and she knows the usual crowd. Which is why she’s kind of surprised to come to _The Nook_ one day and find Henry sitting at a table with a beautiful woman, chatting away. His hands are moving everywhere and she laughs and _is that flirting?_ Cosima raises her eyebrows briefly before she shakes her head and dumps her stuff at a free table before grabbing a coffee. Henry might have told her he’s gay, but she’s not gonna question who he spends his time with. Maybe they’re just friends and if not, well really, it’s none of her business.

She’s halfway through her coffee and nowhere near halfway through her college reading material when Henry comes over to the table.

“I thought I’d introduce you to a fellow science geek,” he grins at her, motioning to the woman that’s looking a bit awkward. “This is Delphine, she’s in… damn, I forgot.”

“Immunology,” the brunette supplies, giving Cosima a tiny wave. “Henry said you were in microbiology, too?”

French. And gorgeous, with hazel eyes and brunette curls barely reaching her chin. _Stop staring, Cosima!_

“Yeah,” Cosima nods, motioning with her papers, “Evo-Devo, though,” she adds before wanting to whack herself at the confused look she receives from the girl. “Sorry, I meant Evolutionary Development.”

“I’m gonna leave you two to chat,” Henry declares, smug grin on his face and Cosima rolls her eyes at him. “Felix wanted to meet up.”

“Yeah, go run be with your boyfriend,” she waves him off.

“You’re just jealous,” Henry pokes his tongue out at her before he hugs her goodbye and then kisses Delphine on the cheek on his way out.

“I’m sorry, he’s…” the French girl trails off and Cosima quickly clears half the table to make room for her to sit down. “I don’t want to distract you from work,” she offers a protest, but Cosima shakes her head, getting up.

“No, I could use a break,” she tells her. “And a refill. Want anything?” she asks Delphine, who asks for a cappuccino. When Cosima gets back with their drinks, she finds the other woman engrossed in her reading material, a soft blush spreading over her cheeks when Cosima sits down again.

“So, how d’you know Henry?” she asks her, taking a sip of her coffee and ignoring the scalding sensation in her throat.

“He lives in my apartment building. I just moved here, he helped get my couch upstairs after my friends bailed on me,” Delphine explains, eyes flickering to something behind Cosima. When she turns her head, she finds two women that are about to start breaking public indecency laws. Cosima shakes her head in amusement, but when she turns back, she finds Delphine with a sort of deer-in-the-headlights-look on her face that makes her pause.

“I take it you’re not gay,” she mutters and Delphine’s eyes widen even more as she pries them away from the display at the other table.

“Oh no,” she quickly shakes her head, curls flying before she pauses, her blush deepening. “I mean, I don’t, it’s not a problem, really-”

“Relax,” Cosima laughs, shaking her head with amusement. “You’re not gonna be thrown out because you’re not a card-carrying member of the club.”

Delphine gives her a shy smile before swallowing. She watches Cosima briefly, evidently gathering her courage.

“Are you?”

“What? A card-carrying member?” Cosima asks, lifting her eyebrows. Delphine ducks her head to take a sip of her cappuccino, avoiding her eyes. “I’m not big on labels,” Cosima tells her with a shrug. “I just, love people. Whatever their gender expression or content of their pants.”

“That’s…” the brunette pauses, brows twitching.

“Crazy?” Cosima supplies. It’s certainly a word she’s heard before, especially from the Straight Crowd. The kind who don’t get that there are people who fall in love with someone’s personality and that whatever they find that personality wrapped up in doesn’t really matter.

“No,” Delphine shakes her head, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “I was going to say, refreshing, I think.”

Cosima watches her, wondering what’s going on in that head of hers. There’s something behind her eyes that seems guarded, a confusion Cosima almost remembers.

“I have a question,” Delphine declares, waiting for Cosima to motion it’s okay. “Do you know this Felix person?”

Okay, _not_ the direction Cosima thought this was going to go, but fine.

“Yeah, I met him before,” she nods, keeping the details of that meeting to herself. Felix is the go-to guy here when it comes to drugs. While he keeps to the pill variety himself, he has connections, and hooked her up with a pretty great weed supplier.

“I get thrown sometimes, because France is different, but I could have sworn he’s a hooker,” Delphine lowers her voice, prompting a laugh from Cosima.

“He is,” she confirms, laughing again at the shocked expression on the other woman’s face. “He doesn’t charge his boyfriend, though.”

It takes her a couple of seconds.

“Henry’s boyfriend is a hooker,” she slowly mutters, shaking her head at her cappuccino. “And I’m in a gay bookshop drinking cappuccino when I should be working on my thesis.”

“It could be worse,” Cosima shrugs. “You could realize that tonight’s the Science Faculty meeting and that you have no idea what to wear.”

The groan the other woman lets out makes her laugh again.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Cosima keeps bumping into Delphine, at school and at _The Nook_. The two pictures couldn’t be any different. In lectures they share, Delphine is attentive, assertive, intelligent and outspoken. She speaks with the voice of someone who knows what she’s talking about and listens raptly to anyone else speaking. She takes notes at a speed that almost impresses Cosima, too.

At _The Nook_ , however, Delphine seems shy and almost never talks. She looks out of place and so thoroughly out of her element that Cosima usually ends up feeling sorry for her and buys her a cup of coffee to cheer her up and to maybe help distract her from whatever thoughts are crowding her head. She doesn’t for a second believe that it’s school related things that have Delphine looking like she’s about to fold in on herself.

Today, Cosima finds her again at one of the tables, science books and notes littering the surface. A grin steals across her face and Cosima slowly sneaks up on her. Delphine is so busy, so engaged in the book she’s reading that she doesn’t notice her approach and jumps a foot in the air when Cosima taps her shoulder and slides into an empty chair.

“Jesus Christ, are you insane?” Delphine snaps at her, hand pressed over her chest. The smile falls away from Cosima’s face as she realizes that the other woman actually seems pissed with her. Oh-oh.

“Sorry,” she apologizes, voice low. “I didn’t think-”

“Maybe you should start doing it, then,” the French student hisses. Cosima can feel her face darken as she holds up her hands.

“Sorry I scared you, but it was just a joke, some harmless fun. You keep looking like you need it, but fine, whatever,” she shrugs and gets up, ignoring her usual table. It’s too close the one Delphine’s currently sitting at. So Cosima goes up the stairs and finds herself a comfortable armchair. She doesn’t have any writing to do today, just some reading, and she might as well be comfortable for that. And maybe it’s not exactly a coincidence that she picks one that has its back turned so she cannot see the people sitting at the tables at the cafe.

It’s over an hour until she is interrupted by someone clearing their throat. Cosima looks up, fully expecting Henry there. Instead she finds Delphine, bottom lip between her white teeth.

“I wanted to apologize,” she says, fingers curled tightly around the book she’d been reading earlier. “I didn’t mean to snap at you like that. I know it was just some harmless fun, I…” she trails off, closing her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Cosima lifts her eyebrows and shifts herself into an upright position before she waves her hand.

“Yeah, it’s okay, whatever,” she shrugs. She doesn’t want to admit it, but the way that Delphine reacted earlier, it actually hurt. An apology doesn’t make that go away entirely, but at least now she’s not angry any more. Her eyes dart to the book, looking for something to talk about, because the silence between them is suddenly an awkward one and Cosima wants to fill it. Only that it’s not a science title, like she expected. She knows that books, it’s one of the first ones she read, back when she was still a teenager and trying to figure stuff out.

Delphine sees her brows furrow slightly and looks down at the book, a blush coloring her cheeks.

“Uh…”

“If you’re interested, there’s a bi group meeting every month,” Cosima tells her. Delphine’s eyes widen and for a second, Cosima almost wants to laugh, the French girl looks so much like a deer caught in the headlights. But that’s not a good thing, she reminds herself just in time.

“No,” Delphine mutters, shaking her head as she frowns at the book. “I don’t think I’d be very welcome there.”

Cosima tilts her head at the fellow student, watching her intently as she tries to understand what Delphine is saying. If she is afraid of running into certain people, or if she doesn’t think the label fits her, Cosima can’t really tell.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Cosima asks finally, her brows creasing with confusion. If there is one thing that that group is, it’s open and friendly and welcoming to everyone. Maybe because they’re all so relieved to be among themselves, with people who get it, who don’t think of them as greedy or indecisive…

“I’m not even sure I am…”

“Bisexual,” Cosima supplies when Delphine clamps her mouth shut, refusing for the word to leave her lips. “And it’s totally your choice if you wanna come or not, but for the record? No one is going to throw you out just because you’re not a hundred percent certain what label fits you. We’ve all been at that point, when straight wasn’t covering it, but the other stuff seemed frightening, or too restrictive, or we were afraid of saying we are something when we weren’t absolutely certain.”

Delphine closes her eyes, shoulders sagging slightly as she sinks into a free armchair.

“If you wanna talk, I’m willing to listen.” she offers, closing her own book. She watches as Delphine worries her lip and runs her hand through her brown curls. Her hair has been getting longer.

“I have no idea where to start,” the French woman finally sighs, rubbing a hand over her face. “I thought, I thought I had everything figured out. Then I come here, I meet Henry and he drags me here and now…” she trails off, her bottom lip between her teeth again.

Cosima shifts, tugs her legs under her to find a more comfortable position to sit in.

“I was thirteen when I had a huge crush on another girl,” she tells Delphine, making the girl look at her in surprise. “Her name was Susie, I was completely smitten, it made for a rather pathetic sight. One evening, on our way home from science club, I kissed her on the lips. She slapped me right across the face.”

Delphine cringes and Cosima suddenly feels like that may not have been the best story to tell the other woman.

“I ran home, tears running down my face, red handprint on my left cheek. My mother saw and naturally, she wanted to know what was going on, who had hit me. I told her the story, I couldn’t shut up, it came all bubbling out,” Cosima shakes her head at her younger self. “I’d never mentioned having a crush to her before, she was pretty shocked for a second. Then she took me by the hand, led me to the kitchen and got out two bowls from the cupboard. We ate so much ice cream with whipped cream I had a stomach ache after. Kind of became our ritual, whenever I was lovesick.”

Delphine swallows, running her nail over the back of the book’s spine.

“I don’t know the kind of relationship you have with your parents, but I’m a pretty good listener. I have a lot of awful date stories, and a freezer filled with ice cream. Eskimo Pies. If you ever want someone to just listen,” Cosima offers. The other girl gives her a soft smile and inclines her head.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, but something tells Cosima that Delphine would rather rip out her own tongue before she unloads her problems with another person. Especially since they are not that close.

* * *

“I don’t particularly care about muffins,” Henry sighs, glaring at the multi-colored cupcakes sitting on the table.

“In that case, more for me,” Cosima shrugs, grabbing one and stuffing her face with it. She really should have eaten something earlier, but after a case of pot-induced munchies, she didn’t have any food left at her apartment. This is a great chance for food and hanging out with friends, which is exactly what she needs to cheer her up. One of her profs has been a real ass, the one class she has with Delphine. Strangely enough, the guy seemed like he was exceptionally fond of the French student, but then this week, Delphine did not look at him once without her patented death glare and he actually snapped at her. It was a sight to behold, though Cosima wasn’t sure what to do when Delphine packed her stuff in the middle of the lecture and just left. Maybe she should have gone with her, out of solidarity, to make sure she was okay, but she kind of really needs the credit this class provides and she cannot afford to piss off the instructor…

“Cosima, bonjour,” Delphine grins, hugging her and kissing Cosima’s cheek and there is an odd sense of relief that she doesn’t seem mad at Cosima at all.

“Pft, I see how it is,” Henry crosses his arms when Delphine merely waves at him. “Just because I have a dick-”

“Hug him or he will be like this the rest of the day,” Cosima quickly instructs and Delphine follows her order, wrapping her arms around their friend. Who sighs.

“Much better,” Henry nods when they part, Delphine’s head tilted to the side.

“Did I miss something?” she asks, her eyes darting to Cosima and back at Henry.

“Felix may or may not have decided to disappear for an undisclosed amount of time. He’s pissy because he didn’t tell him before leaving,” Cosima supplies, gesturing at Henry.

“Ah,” Delphine nods and Henry chooses that moment to roll his eyes and excuse himself, leaving the two women alone.

Delphine never brought up what happened at _The Nook_ in the past four weeks, and neither did Cosima, taking her cues from the other woman. She didn’t expect Delphine to stop by for _The Nook_ ’s anniversary, but it’s nice to see her. And to see her happy.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Cosima asks, watching Delphine grab a muffin and take a bite as she nods. “You and Leekie… what was that about?”

The other woman’s face darkens before she exhales slowly through her nose.

“He made a pass at me,” she finally answers when Cosima thought that she wouldn’t learn what had transpired between the two.

“What?”

“I went to see him about our assignment, discuss possible topics, you know,” the blond scientist elaborates with a shrug. “He invited me to talk it over during dinner. It was late, I hadn’t eaten, and honestly I didn’t think anything of it. Dinner was already kind of awkward, I felt like he was asking questions about things he had no business to stick his nose into. I started feeling uncomfortable when he tried to insist on driving me home, and when the cab arrived, he kissed me.”

Cosima’s hands have curled into fists at her sides at the words, rage filling her. There is something about those fucking asshole professors thinking they can exploit young women that depend on good grades from them that just gets her blood boiling.

“You okay?” Delphine asks her, a concerned look on her face.

“I should be asking you that,” Cosima presses out between her teeth and manages to take a few slow breaths.

“Yes. He didn’t touch me or anything. I made it clear I wasn’t interested in anything of that nature and he seems to have gotten the idea.”

“Maybe you should report him,” Cosima suggests, watching as Delphine’s brows crease before she shakes her head.

“I rather not,” she mutters, grabbing a cupcake. Cosima watches her peel the wrapper back before she begins to eat. “Would you mind if I borrowed your notes? For the remainder of the class that I missed.”

“No, sure, I’ll email them to you,” Cosima nods before excusing herself when a friend pulls her away. It takes her a few minutes to get back to Delphine, minutes in which Cosima is kind of worried, because really, Delphine here, it’s usually not so great an experience for the brunette. But when Cosima finally manages to pry herself away from one of the support group members, she finds Delphine chatting away animatedly with another girl. Cosima blinks and actually has to do a double take, because for a second, she’s not sure if that is Delphine there or some alien that snatched her skin. She seems rather comfortable, for a change. It’s good, Cosima should be happy that she’s gaining confidence. But there is something that makes her scowl at the other girl and grab another muffin before she leaves. Her paper isn’t going to write itself, and if she stays, then she might do something she’d regret.

* * *

Her usual spot is taken when Cosima comes back after summer break, so she finds herself a little corner to start on working up somewhat of a head start. She really has to make use of this semester. Her parents keep pestering her about graduating and she needs to get back on track. Less distractions, more academia. Or something like that is the plan for this semester.

Delphine left. At least Henry hasn’t seen her in weeks, basically, and there’s someone new living at her place. She was shocked, at first, that the other woman would disappear like that, without a goodbye. But then Cosima supposed that maybe it was just a semester abroad and she’d gone back to France. Maybe she’d even graduated already, Cosima isn’t sure, but she thinks Delphine was ahead of her…

With a swift shake of her head, she returns to her reading material. Classes start up again in less than a week, there’s still so much that she’ll be expected to have read and thinking of some girl that she barely knew isn’t going to make her understand the text in front of her.

The scent of coffee hits her nostrils a mere second before there’s a paper cup held in her view. Cosima takes it, closing her eyes and inhaling the scent before she turns to look at whoever the generous giver is. And her jaw actually drops in surprise at seeing Delphine there, grinning at her.

“Bonjour, Cosima,” she smiles, allowing Cosima to hug her. Even if it might be a little weird, because Delphine isn’t really a physical person and she doesn’t seem to like hugs like that, but it only takes her a second before she relaxes and her arms wrap around Cosima to hug her back.

“I thought you’d gone back to France,” Cosima exclaims as they sit down, Delphine making room for herself in the clutter around Cosima.

“Only for the break,” Delphine tells her, hand going up into her hair. It’s longer now, and blond. It looks startlingly different but it suits her. She likes it, Cosima decides. “I sublet my apartment, my parents insisted on me coming home for the summer break. It was kind of an ultimatum, my father threatened to cut me off if I didn’t show my face for at least four weeks.”

“Ouch,” Cosima cringes at the thought. She visited her parents, too, but she did so voluntarily, because she missed them (plus staying with them always means she gets free food and who is going to say no to that?).

“My brother came for their anniversary for a change, it was actually almost nice,” Delphine tilts her head, smiling at Cosima as her hands fidget with the strap of her messenger bag.

“You okay?” Cosima asks her, watching her. Delphine’s teeth flash as she starts worrying at her bottom lip.

“Actually, I was wondering if, maybe, only if you don’t have anything else planned, of course, I wouldn’t want to presume, I mean I am grateful for your offer to just listen to me ramble, even if I never made use of it, have I even thanked you for that, I don’t think I have-”

“Delphine!” Cosima cuts through the other woman’s rambling and Delphine’s eyes widen in surprise. “Rambling,” she tells her and the French girl gives a curt nod.

“Right.”

“What were you trying to say?” Cosima asks her, taking a sip of the coffee. And almost ends up downing the contents on herself in surprise.

“What?” she asks, swallowing a cough. Delphine’s cheeks have gone pink and she’s steadfastly refusing to meet Cosima’s eyes, her own hazel ones darting around nervously.

“I wanted to ask you out,” she repeats, voice barely audible. “Dinner and maybe a movie. Or if you wanted, we could go to one of those guest lectures together. I’ve read over the schedule for this month, there are some really interesting ones planned…”

“Like a date?” Cosima asks carefully, searching Delphine’s face. The other woman closes her eyes briefly before she nods, drawing a slow breath. When she opens them again, she looks straight into Cosima’s.

“ _Oui._ As a date. Would you, like, to go on a date, with me?”

Cosima’s brows twitch in surprise and confusion.

“Okay, uh,” she stammers, searching for the right words. “No offense, but you kind of disappeared without a trace. I mean, Henry thought you’d moved back to France, you didn’t contact any of us during break-”

“I needed to think,” Delphine interrupts her. “I had to be alone and, away, from you, and figure out what was going on.”

Cosima nods slowly, biting her lower lip before she shrugs. “Have you figured it out?”

“I am not sure if I’m bisexual, or gay, or whatever,” Delphine shakes her head. “But,” she continues, “I know that you were on my mind, a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, actually, and I have watched my life pass me by for so long that I am tired of it. I like you and I would like to figure out where it might take us. If you want to, of course.”

Cosima can feel her lips begin to curl into a smile as her heart thumps in her chest. Delphine’s watching her expectantly, soft blush still coloring her cheeks.

“Yeah,” she nods, grinning. “I would love to see where this could take us.”

Delphine’s hopeful look slowly morphs into a big smile as she tilts her head, drawing a giddy laugh from Cosima.

“So, what lectures caught your eye?” she asks, watching as Delphine’s face lights up and she goes searching through her bag to procure a leaflet she’s picked up earlier to show Cosima.


	9. masquerade-less AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not following the prompt to the letter in this, but oh well. I apologize for the long wait. My image of werewolves and parts of this have been heavily inspired by Kelley Armstrong's "Women of the Otherworld" book series (which the tv show "Bitten" is based on).

Cosima shifts on the chair, tries to find a comfortable position. The wolf on the cage is sleeping, deep breaths coming from it. It’s blonde fur is matted with sweat and dirt, sticking to its side.

Upstairs, she can hear the others start arguing again. It’s been like this for almost a month now. Ever since Helena disappeared.

Cosima shakes her head, her attention returning to her book. The wolf lets out a soft whimper and she looks up as it starts convulsing on the floor. Waring with herself for a second, Cosima finally averts her eyes. It doesn’t block out the sounds, the muscle tearing, skin ripping. And the screaming. A shiver runs down her spine as she clenches her eyes shut, nails digging into the skin of her palms to stave off her own Change.

When there is only the sound of harsh breathing filling the air, Cosima slowly relaxes. Opens her eyes to look back at the cage. Cowering in a corner is a young woman, arms wrapped around her bare legs. Her blonde hair is sticking to her skin. She _reeks_.

Cosima scrunches her nose and places the book down. Slowly, she approaches the cage from the other side. Sits down on the ground.

“Hello,” she greets the other girl, a soft smile tugging on her lips. “I’m Cosima.”

She’s done the same thing about ten times now. Sometimes she wonders if there will ever be an end to it. If they’ll ever reach the point where the girl will be able to control her changes. Or if all their patience and Cosima’s pleading will have been for naught. She doesn’t like to dwell on these thoughts, because she knows the fate that awaits werewolves when they do not learn to control themselves. Knows it because it almost became her own.

The girl runs her tongue over her lips, moving her lips slowly.

“Are you thirsty?” Cosima asks, pushing a bottle of water between the bars, careful to pull her hand back before the girl can touch her. She wants to believe in her, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t aware of the risk, or that she trusts the other woman not to rip her to shreds. Whether she realizes it or not, she definitely could.

Cosima watches her gulp down the water, eyes skirting around the room, finding the door. Cosima follows her line of sight, sighs. As long as their pack leader does not give her okay, there won’t be any getting out of this basement.

“Hungry, too?” she asks the girl when she caps the empty bottle with shaking fingers and pushes it through the bars. She looks at Cosima, hazel eyes accusing. This time, she makes no attempt to speak. Instead, she scoots back into the corner of the cage, rolls in on herself and closes her eyes. Her breathing doesn’t even out until almost an hour later. Cosima keeps sitting on the cold concrete floor the whole time. Keeps watching their prisoner. Imprisoned for her own good, for her own protection, it doesn’t matter. She remembers sitting in that place herself. Remembers being confused and hurt and so angry with the world. She remembers the first times anyone of the pack tried to talk to her, remembers the snarling and spitting. Not a pretty sight, certainly not. But still it’s something Cosima refuses to be ashamed off, unlike Alison. But Alison is different, different from Cosima and different from Sarah and different from Felix and certainly different from Helena. They’re all different from Helena, thank God.

* * *

 

The girl still hasn’t spoken a word. She keeps flinching away from every touch, every loud sound. Which are a lot, given their hearing abilities.

Seeing Sarah makes her flee the room, and Cosima ends up being the one that runs after her every time. She gets it, kind of. She’s never had to deal with the guy that bit her again, so she can only imagine the terror of the girl when she sees Sarah. But his face used to haunt her in her dreams, she used to wake up screaming in fear, phantom pain from the bite throbbing in her shoulder.

The reason they found the newcomer is because she smelled faintly of Helena. They were following the bloody trail their pack sister left behind when she snapped, and one night, stumbled over the girl.

Cosima had thought she was dead. If it had been Sarah’s choice, she would be, but Sarah had been delegated to the muscle for this mission, all decision making power stripped from her. And Cosima looked at the girl and saw herself and she couldn’t kill her. If you’d listened to Alison, Cosima’s move was the more cruel of the two options. Alison has always hated being a werewolf and Cosima gives no fucks about what she has to say on the matter of the girl now living in their pack home.

She’s started eating, though, and Cosima is willing to take that as a good sign. She knows how few people survive the initial bite, and she can see some strength return to the girl. It fills her with something akin to relief and maybe a bit of joy.

They’re still locking her up at night, but now she’s coming willingly. Is on her best behavior, really, has been for the past four days. Cosima can see her spirits slowly rising. She is painfully aware of the passing of the days and knows that there will be the inevitable moment when the girl realizes that she’s still the monster she thinks she is now.

They’ve put a mattress into the cage and blankets. Cosima spends most of her day with the girl and notices how she’s getting antsy, how she fidgets, how her legs jiggle when she sits down for a few moments. She knows Mrs S noticed, too, and is waiting for her to tell her. It pains her, because Cosima knows what it means, but she doesn’t have a choice.

There are screams when they lock her up that night. They start before she’s halfway to the cage, when the girl realizes they took her mattress away again. She works herself into a frenzy, pushes and shoves and kicks and bites and Sarah barely manages to close the door to the cage before the Change starts and the girl’s screams fill their ears and the basement and entire house. Sarah almost runs for the stairs, but Cosima stays, whispering apologies. She knows the girl can’t hear her over her own painful screeching, but still, Cosima has to tell her, has to explain how they don’t mean to punish her.

When the wolf stares at her, yellow eyes filled with pain and grief, Cosima finally stops talking. She sits back on her haunches and watches the animal. She looks better now, after she had a shower and is allowed out for a few hours. When Cosima opens her mouth again, the animal lets out a snort and turns around, her back to her. Cosima frowns, getting up to walk around, but when she’s within sight, the wolf turns away again. She gives a soft sigh and sits down, resigning herself to watching the animal again for a night.

* * *

Her name is Delphine.

It takes her four months until she’s talking to them. Talking to Cosima, that is. And Mrs S. Something that fills Cosima with hope. That Delphine recognizes the older woman as the alpha of their pack, that she does as she’s told whenever Siobhan Sadler gives the instructions.

Alison mostly ignores the newcomer. She was like that with Cosima, too, and they’ll never see eye-to-eye on the matter, that Cosima is sure of.

Alison, Sarah, Helena, Felix, Mrs S, they’re all born werewolves. The gene passed down from their parents, from mother to daughter and father to son. Sarah passed it on to Kira, too, the faint smell growing stronger as the years pass and Kira inches slowly towards puberty. For born werewolves, it is the time of the first Change. For bitten ones, the Change comes as soon as their bodies react to the bite. Most bitten werewolves don’t survive the strain, bodies weakened by the virus reprogramming their DNA and their injuries. No werewolf bites to turn, especially not those who have lost control and go about hunting animals and humans alike. Especially not the ones like Helena.

What Cosima remembers of her first month as a werewolf is blinding pain and the feeling of concrete below her and the rattling of the cage as she threw herself against it again and again. She knows she was a wild one, feral, would have killed anyone who’d approached her. Knows that she was much like Delphine then, knows that she had no idea how to control the wolf inside her, how to reign in the beast.

Alison is the one who’s most in control. Still, she has little patience teaching said control. Mrs S is better, but even she is coming from a place of privilege, of having been prepared for her first change all her life before it happened. She knew who she was, knew what would be happening to her, had time to prepare for it. For Cosima and now for Delphine, becoming a werewolf was unexpected and nothing anyone ever prepared them for.

It’s the first time they go running together, since they found Delphine. The first time they will be complete, as a pack. Complete without Helena. Biting a human, turning them, is grounds for banishment. Cosima never thought that Mrs S could do that, not to any of them, and especially not to a child she’d raised herself. But Helena has become a danger to them, especially Kira, and if there is one thing neither Mrs S nor Sarah will tolerate, it is any threat towards Kira.

Delphine keeps close to Cosima after they have changed, and Cosima sticks to Mrs S for a change. Usually, she runs right off with Felix, crashing through the underwood with him and Sarah as they chase each other. Now she watches the siblings bound off, itching to join them, but Delphine’s tail wags her as she turns around, jumping on the forest ground. Mrs S lets out a snort and Delphine looks up sharply. There’s puzzlement in her eyes before she goes back to lifting her paws and setting them down again, testing the feeling of the leaves beneath her. Cosima tilts her head, the wolf inside her growing impatient. She wiggles around, nudges Delphine, moves in the direction Felix and Sarah took off. Delphine lets out a yelp as Cosima takes off. She tries to keep up but skids across the wet leaves and lands face-first in a row of bushes when Cosima suddenly changes direction. Her tongue lolling out, Cosima watches her new pack sister get up slowly and shake out her limbs. At her accusing look, Cosima lets out a snort and then bounds off again, slower this time, to give Delphine a chance to follow.

They run around the forest for most of the night, chasing each other. Delphine ends up getting jumped a few times, mock fights breaking out. But even with all the running, Cosima finds her wolf’s restless energy spurring her further. The wolf inside her yearns, wants to be free, the human tilting her head in confusion. She has never felt that way before. It was always enough to run with her pack, to give Alison a good whack and to chase Felix through the undergrowth, but that only leaves her more restless. Cosima takes off again, chasing after a rabbit, managing to catch it on her own. Following an instinct, she throws back her head and howls, as loud as she can. It doesn’t take long for the answer to sound in her ears and her pack is with her again, sniffing the catch. Mrs S feeds first and Sarah and Cosima run off, in search of more food.

Filled, she later watches as Delphine starts devouring the scraps they left for her. Felix takes a step closer, nosing the remains of the rabbit that Delphine has her face buried in, and Cosima feels a low growl resonate within her chest, the wolf inside her bristling. Her pack brother looks up in surprise, tail tugging between his legs as he slinks away again. She feels Mrs S watch her, eyes trimmed on her every move, so Cosima forces herself to relax, even when the wolf inside her refuses to settle completely.

Sarah kicks at Felix when he tries to groom her. Delphine watches them, ears upright as she is lying on the forest ground. Cosima flops down next to her. The light fur of her face is matted with blood. Cosima tilts her head then moves in, licking away. The human in her raises her eyebrows in surprise, but the wolf leaps with joy, urges her on. Delphine licks across her chest, turns on her back and exposes her belly to Cosima before she turns, eyes trimmed on a row of bushes. Cosima heard it, too, but ignores the fox in favor of watching the other wolf. She’s beautiful, graceful, but more than that; there is something in Delphine that makes Cosima’s wolf feel at home in a way she has never been before.

Sarah throws her head back and howls, the note long and loud in the night air. She draws a breath and does it again, Felix joining her this time, and then Cosima and Mrs S. When Alison finally relents, there’s another, new howl joining the sound of the pack. Cosima looks over to find Delphine standing there, head tilted back, staring at the stars above the clearing as she pants between notes.

_Mate_ , the wolf in Cosima whispers and she shakes her head in a motion that is entirely too dog-like before she joins the howling again. She’s not the alpha. She doesn’t get to mate.

* * *

“You _reek_ of human,” Felix observes when Delphine walks into the house one day, making her pause.

“I do work in a lab,” she shrugs as Felix’s eyes flicker to Cosima. The wolf in her snarls at the smell drifting from Delphine.

“He means,” she explains, her voice carefully neutral, “that we can smell _him_ on you.”

It makes Delphine pause in unloading the groceries.

“You may wanna take a shower. Alison doesn’t like the smell of sex in the afternoon. Or at any time, really,” Felix adds. It has Delphine flushing crimson before she excuses herself, scrambling up the stairs to the bathroom. Cosima follows her slowly and waits in front of Delphine door. It’s almost thirty minutes before the other woman comes from the bathroom, towel wrapped around herself, blonde curls dripping wet. She smells of wolf and peach shower gel, the lingering scent of her nightly activities finally gone.

“You didn’t tell me,” she points at Cosima as she pushes past her into her room. The towel falls away and it takes Cosima a few seconds to realize she should not be staring at the naked form of her pack sister. They are very comfortable around each other. Waking up naked, cuddling the others as after a night run does that. Still, there is a difference between being comfortable with nudity and staring at someone like you’re about to devour them.

“I told you to be careful,” Cosima shrugs, flopping down on Delphine’s bed.

“I thought you meant so I would not lose control,” the blonde shakes her head as she puts on a tank, “not that you’d all know when I was having sex.”

The hackles of her wolf rise and Cosima mentally slaps it on the muzzle, making it yelp. _Not an alpha_ , she reminds herself.

It’s been almost two years since Helena bit Delphine. Two years in which she has ignored any mention of any male acquaintance whatsoever. She knows Mrs S and Delphine had a conversation a while back, guessed the contents, even. That doesn’t mean Cosima has to acknowledge that Delphine is banging a human. Sometimes, her kind’s penchant for being snotty about humans makes things easier.

“I didn’t think you were,” she mutters, picking up a bracelet before setting it down. She can feel Delphine’s eyes on her and attempt to keep from squirming. They’ve been fighting a lot, lately. Cosima doesn’t like that she’s leaving the pack more and more, goes out with different men, flirts with them at clubs, drinks alcohol… she tries to justify it with being concerned for her, being worried that Delphine is still young, a fresh werewolf, that she might lose control. But whenever she tries to do that, Mrs S just looks at her with that expression in her eyes that says she can see right through Cosima’s front. It makes her antsy and wondering if maybe she should return to San Fran, get some distance between the Pack and herself. Not that Cosima would do that. After what happened with Helena, she’s reluctant to leave her Pack, out of fear of doing something like the other woman did.

Delphine sighs, sitting down on her bed. “Cosima?” she starts and her tone makes the other woman look over at her friend, pack member and- she quickly gives the wolf another whack. _No. Don’t even think it._

“You don’t have a mate, do you?”

Cosima feels her entire body stiffen. She narrows her eyes before she shakes her head.

“No.”

Delphine sighs, twisting a hand into her curls with a frown.

“Do you, I mean, Alison and Donnie,” she begins, searching for the words. Cosima tries not to snort with derision at the mention of Alison’s human husband. “I was wondering… she seems to really love him. Can we… this mate thing, can it work with humans, too?”

Cosima frowns, drawing a breath and slowly letting it out. It would be easy to lie. She’s done it about a million times, to herself. Told herself she could be normal still, after being Bitten. Could live a normal life, with the occasional escape to the forest to run. Told herself she’d meet a guy one day, or a gal, and settle down. Could feel for any human the way she feels for her Pack. It’s comforting, that lie. Until one day, you cannot keep it up, and it comes shattering around you.

“No,” Cosima swallows. “No, I don’t think it can.”

Delphine closes her eyes, fingers clenching the comforter on her bed. It’s easy to run from the truth, really easy. Until someone refuses to play along.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” she whispers, reaching up to wipe at a tear that’s running down her face. Cosima walks over and sits down next to her. Her hand is warm, familiar, the touch calming, even though it stirs thoughts in Cosima that shouldn’t be there.

“We can love them,” she offers. Alison does love her husband, that’s something Cosima never doubted. And Donnie is the perfect kind of human for a werewolf to have as a partner: soft, pliant, easy to shut down and shut up. It’s a miracle that anyone would put up with their loved one disappearing without warning once every week. Cosima knows Alison has perfected the art of lying and subtle manipulation, has come up with a hundred excuses as to why she’s away, why she slips from their marriage bed every once in a while. Why she has friends she refuses to introduce him to, why he cannot meet her “cousins”. Cosima tried that herself, with a human partner. Once. Zack was different, different from Donnie. Less understanding, less patient, and less easily controlled. In the end, she couldn’t lie to him any more. Couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes and swear that she wasn’t keeping things from him.

“They just… there’s a whole part of our lives we can’t tell them about. They know it. Not the secret itself, but they know we’re different, deep down they can sense it,” she rambles, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We can love them, and they love us back, sometimes. But eventually, the lies become too much. Dating a human, it never ends well.”

Delphine sighs.

“Alison and Donnie seem to be able to make it work,” she offers a protest. Cosima searches her face, watches her carefully.

“You do realize that Alison got sterilized when they got serious, right?”

Delphine’s face is shocked as she stares at Cosima, jaw slackened.

“Explaining your own escapades away is one thing. Covering for your kid and trying to teach them about their own nature and forcing them to lie to their other parent is another,” Cosima shrugs. She gets it. Kind of. Mrs S found Sarah and Helena and Felix when they were kids and took them in, their parents unable to take care of them without the support of a pack behind them. Alison’s parents split when she was barely five, under the strain of her mother trying to figure out how to explain to her daughter who she really was, what was happening with her body and keep it all a secret from her human husband. And when Cosima was dating Zack, she made extra sure there would be absolutely no surprises. She’s not about to put werewolf offspring into this world, not without having every tiny detail figured out. That includes how to tell them what they are.

Delphine worries at her lip, a sad smile tugging at it.

“Any advice on how to break up with a human?” she asks, stealing a sideways glance at Cosima.

“Let his imagination run wild,” Cosima offers. “They usually suspect we’re hiding something. Most of the time, their immediate conclusion is we’re having an affair. If you don’t wanna lie to him that way, just tell him you can’t do a relationship right now. And if that fails, you can always sick Sarah on his ass.”

At that, Delphine lets out a soft laugh, bumping Cosima’s shoulder. She joins her laughter with soft giggles, sobering when she realizes that Delphine is staring at her.

“Are we still friends?” she asks her, voice soft and insecure.

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Cosima…” Delphine sighs, a warning edge creeping into her tone. “I’m not stupid. You’ve been… weird, lately.”

Cosima shrugs.

“Just school,” she explains it away. Delphine gives her a look that tells her she doesn’t entirely believe her, maybe senses the lie even. Cosima knows that it might be possible, they tend to pick up on nonverbal cues a lot more easily than humans might, even though they aren’t able to explain those “gut instincts” most of the time.

“Come on, Felix is probably starving,” she decides to change the subject, getting up and leaving Delphine room for the kitchen. Sure enough, her pack brother is devouring what seems like the leftovers from last night, prompting Cosima to roll her eyes. She’s already got a pot with water on the stove and is mincing onions for the sauce when Delphine joins them, wordlessly starting on the meat. It’s this sort of comfortable domesticity and companionship Cosima loves about having a pack. There are werewolves who prefer solitude, but she’s not one of them and pretty certain she’d never be able to. She loves her found family too much for that.

* * *

Delphine’s letting out a low growl, making Cosima look over to the bar. Following her pack sisters gaze, she finds it glued to the hands of the guy Cosima’s currently dancing with, his hands firmly on her hips. She plucks them off, ignores his protest and stalks over to the bar. Delphine keeps staring at the guy, hackles up, as Cosima drags her outside, where she slams her against the wall. The impact makes Delphine shake her head slowly, eyes clearing.

“What the hell was that?” she asks her, glaring at the other woman. Delphine swallows, mouth opening. Her eyes are alive with a predatory gleam in them and Cosima has only a split second warning before she is pushed against the brick wall by the other woman, Delphine’s hands on her hips lifting her up as she kisses her.

“Mine,” she growls into Cosima’s mouth, pushing at her, fingers snatching the material of Cosima’s dress, hiking it up. Her head is spinning, human and wolf both groaning in anticipation and pleasure as she hooks a leg around Delphine’s hip and kisses her back, biting her lip.

“Mine,” Delphine repeats, hands slipping beneath the dress, running up and down Cosima’s thigh, nails digging into her skin.

“Shit,” Cosima hisses, hips arching, searching pressure, searching relief as her hand grips Delphine’s shoulder hard enough to bruise. She feels Delphine’s mouth on her neck, teeth grazing as she kisses down before she sinks her teeth into Cosima’s shoulder. The pain is sharp, making her yelp and pull at Delphine’s curls hard enough to make the other woman pull back. Her eyes are on fire, gleaming in the light of the street lamp. Delphine blinks, slowly, sluggishly, the fog lifting gradually. She looks down at Cosima’s shoulder, sees the markings in the fabric of her dress.

“ _Merde_ ,” she breathes, letting go of Cosima’s thigh to carefully brush her fingers over the bite. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean, I, I would never…” she stammers, closing her eyes as fear flickers over her face. Cosima watches, lets her hands fall away before settling them on Delphine’s hips, a soft squeeze drawing her attention.

“You okay?” she asks her, attempting to keep her tone as neutral as possible. This is what she warned Delphine about, this is why they all told her to be careful. No matter how hard they try, sometimes, the wolf escapes, comes out to play. And the wolf likes it _rough_.

“I should be the one asking you,” Delphine murmurs, wiping a tear away from her face. Cosima swallows and carefully guides her face to look at her. When Delphine refuses to open her eyes, she leans in and kisses her, gently, a mere brushing of their lips. She can feel her shiver, can feel Delphine tremble against her with barely contained excitement and arousal, feels her jerk her hips forward, rubbing against Cosima with a moan.

“We need to get away from here,” Cosima mutters, resting her forehead against Delphine’s.

“Not yet,” the other woman responds, voice rough, fingers digging into Cosima’s hips again. It’s different, though, Cosima feels the shift between heady lust and an attempt to regain control. “Can’t trust, just, a minute,” Delphine stammers, stiffening when the backdoor of the club opens and another drunk couple stumbles out. Cosima slips her hand under Delphine’s shirt, presses her nails into the skin over her spine.

“You’re in control,” she husks, nibbling at Delphine’s ear, eyes glued to the humans as they stumble, kissing, down the alley and take a turn. Delphine shivers again, sagging against Cosima. It takes longer than a minute, more than ten, actually, for Cosima to be certain Delphine has the worst of it under control. Enough that she won’t jump anyone who accidentally crosses their path.

They return to the house of the pack or rather, the woods surrounding it. There is absolutely no chance in hell that Cosima is doing this under the same roof that’s housing her alpha, and she doesn’t want to risk taking Delphine to her own place. There is only so much her neighbors will tolerate and she’s pretty sure the keening sounds Delphine makes are not among them.

Her entire body feels like it is on fire; slow, exquisite torture. Different from the Change, but similar to it, too. She can feel Delphine’s heartbeat against her chest, feels it travel through her body to her toes and fingertips. It’s been a while since she had sex, but this, _this_ is something Cosima never had before. Her hands are trembling as she runs them over Delphine’s body, chest vibrating with a low growl. Her shoulder is throbbing from the bite earlier, a bruise forming in the shape of Delphine’s teeth. She drags her nails down Delphine’s back, watches as she arches into the touch, exposes her throat. Cosima leans in, kisses the white skin, lets her teeth graze it. The moan Delphine lets out sounds in her ears. Cosima’s wolf is howling, leaping, wants _more_ , wants to be _closer_ -

The touch of Delphine’s hand makes her see stars. Her hips jerk with the movement as long fingers push into her. It doesn’t take much for Cosima’s world to explode, for her back to arch off the grass of the clearing in the forest, head tilted back. The trees are upside down and Cosima feels a laugh bubble up in her throat. Her ears are ringing, vision exploding into every color imaginable as she clutches as Delphine’s back, holds her close, her mouth moving with words she doesn’t even know.

When she comes to, Delphine’s curled into her side, crying softly.

“Hey,” Cosima breathes, sitting up with worry. Delphine lets out a sob and hugs her close, showering Cosima’s shoulder with kisses, lips moving, forming words she doesn’t get out. Cosima reaches up, cradles her head and holds her, rocking carefully.

“ _Ne me quitte pas_ ,” Delphine finally gets out, leaning back, eyes pleading. Cosima frowns, brain kicking into gear. _Don’t leave me._

“I won’t,” she whispers, wiping the tears from Delphine’s eyes. “It’s okay,” she smiles at her, flinching when she discovers the welts her nails left behind on Delphine’s body. In the morning twilight, the colors are slowly returning to the world, still muted, dull against the feeling flooding Cosima, rushing through her entire being.

“I love you,” she says, voice loud in the stillness of the morning. Delphine blinks at her, eyes shining brightly, a life in them Cosima never saw before.

“ _Je t’aime_ ,” she replies, a grin spreading over her face. For a moment, Cosima thinks her chest might explode with how big her heart feels, thinks she might float away with how light Delphine’s words leave her.

Her hand twists into blonde curls as she pulls her in for a kiss.

“Mine.”

This time, it’s Cosima who breathes the word, finally allows herself to give voice to what she has been wanting to say for months, has wanted to etch into Delphine’s skin for everyone to see. Taken, not yours, mine, always mine, no one else’s, only mine to kiss, to touch, to hold-

Delphine arches against her when Cosima’s hand drifts low, sneaks between her legs. She’s still wet, still yearning, a soft whimper escaping her at the touch. Cosima seals her lips with a kiss as her fingers slip inside, curl slowly.

“Cosima.”

Delphine’s breath is hot against her neck as she feels her wrap her arms around her, allows her to pull Cosima closer, changing the angle in a way that makes the blonde groan.

Last night, everything was on fire, colors dancing in front of her eyes so that Cosima could barely see. Now, she watches Delphine’s flushed face, watches white teeth flash as they sink into her lip in an attempt to keep her quiet, hears the breath hitch in Delphine throat when she pushes her palm up, hears her heartbeat thunder in her chest. Delphine slowly coming undone at her hands is the most wonderful thing ever, Cosima finds, sucking on the woman’s collarbone as Delphine’s shout fills her ears and pretty much that of every other creature in these woods.

* * *

She finds Delphine on the porch, hands clutching the railing tightly. Cosima places a mug on the banister, eyes trimmed on the woods.

A particularly painful howl from inside makes Delphine drop her head between her shoulders. She watches, waits until Delphine reaches out, groping for her hand. Cosima entwines their fingers, squeezing hard.

_If it hurts them like this, then what is Sarah feeling, watching her daughter’s first Change?_

She doesn’t want to think about that, Cosima decides. Shakes her head resolutely and wipes away the tears on Delphine’s face. Her mate gives a sheepish shrug, eyes flickering back to the house and the sudden stillness within.

“Breathe,” Cosima murmurs and sure enough, Delphine draws a deep breath and lets it out immediately to draw another.

“We were fools,” she whispers, resting her forehead against Cosima’s.

“Maybe,” Cosima allows, slipping her hand under the fabric of her mate’s shirt. It’s cool against the warmth of Delphine’s belly and Cosima feels her mate begin to relax as the baby gives a strong kick.

In her dreams, Delphine and her are chasing through the woods, a wolf cub running alongside them. Cosima knows the baby is a girl, can feel it in her being, just like her love for Delphine. Delphine insists on not naming it before the baby is born, refuses to allow Cosima to use any name even just to try it out. In the beginning of the pregnancy, Cosima could smell the fear on her, could smell it penetrate her entire being. It’s let up, now that she can feel their daughter move. Sometimes it flares, like when Delphine is Changing, or when she has a nightmare and wakes up gasping Cosima’s name.

The baby moves again, a flutter against Cosima’s fingertips. _I’m here_ , she’s saying. Delphine’s lips curl into a soft smile, fingers brushing Cosima’s.

For some people, getting Bitten is a curse.

For Cosima, it was a blessing. She’s found a pack and a mate and love so deep it penetrates her soul. It makes the human in her dance and the wolf howl at the moon.


	10. merfolk AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about the long time between chapters. I went on vacation and now I'm back at school, so time for writing will be scarce.

One of the basic rules of diving is to always take a partner. But she’s not really scuba diving, it’s snorkeling, and really, what’s the worst that can happen?

Well, you can underestimate the depths you’re in and be caught by a current and suddenly find yourself kicking your legs manically and still not get any closer to the surface as your lungs start burning and Cosima knows, she knows the second she opens her mouth and inhales water will come rushing in, and it’s only a liter of water in her lungs that will be needed to kill her and on each inhale, she takes in about four liters and still she can’t fight it, can’t fight her body’s reaction as her vision starts going dark and her mouth opens and she breathes in-

She wakes with a start, coughing, spluttering as she kicks and flails her arms. She’s back on her little boat. Her goggles are nowhere to be found, neither is her snorkel. She’s lost one of her diving fins, too. Slowly, she sits up and blinks, looking around. There’s nothing there, except the vast ocean.

The specimen jars she was carrying in a net are lined up neatly. It’s that sight that sends a shiver down her spine and she takes off the remaining fin and pulls back the hood of her diving suit.

Someone was here. Someone was down there with her. There is no other explanation as to how she would’ve survived this, other than by someone intervening. She didn’t notice the other diver, maybe because she was already so out of it from the lack of oxygen. Someone took her and carried her back up here. Not just that, they found her boat, too. Because Cosima’s pretty sure the location where she went under was nowhere near the boat, the current was too strong as it enveloped her.

Still a little dazed, she shakes her head and slowly scoots over to the motor to get it going and get back to the mainland. She’s had enough of the ocean to last her for a lifetime, really.

* * *

When she returns to gather more samples (she didn’t really have enough, sealife still fascinates her, and her thesis is not going to work with the few samples she’s gotten already) she has this very weird feeling of being watched.

She chalks it up to her near-death experience (not that she’s told anyone about that). Cosima made a vow to be more careful from now on, has gotten herself maps with the currents drawn in. And there’s an emergency oxygen tank now strapped to her back, in case she ever gets caught in one again.

She thinks she sees something in the corner of her eye a few times. These aren’t waters known for a shark population, but the shadow she catches a few times still makes her uneasy and return to her boat sooner than she’d originally planned. The next few weeks she spends analyzing the samples and comparing the data from the different spots, mind working furiously to find an explanation for the results.

* * *

Scientists develop a theory and then they test its validity in a series of experiments.

Cosima has no intention of having another near-death experience and drowning herself on purpose to test her theory is not something that sounds at all appealing, especially since the outcome might be her death.

What do you do when you’re trying to catch a ghost? As with any other thing, you set a trap. Something that lures whatever you want to catch in.

She tries with a couple of things that would certainly catch her own attention, that used to catch it when she was little. One of them is another pair of diving goggles, because when Cosima regained consciousness after almost drowning, hers were missing for some reason. She’d deduced that whoever had rescued her had taken them, maybe because they’d been fascinating to them. But whatever it was, a new pair fails to produce any results.

She’s frowning at print-outs of the sample analysis from the lab when there’s a soft splash and on looking up, Cosima finds herself staring into the face of another woman, peering curiously at her from the rim of the boat.

“Holy crap!” she exclaims, scrambling up. The eyes of the other woman widen and she drops, disappearing beneath the surface of the water. Cosima wants to slap herself for her initial reaction, because fuck, this might’ve been a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and she’s basically ruined any chance of talking to… whoever, _whatever_ that was by her outburst.

After giving a sharp tug at her dreads, the brunette calls herself a myriad of names before sighing and resigning herself to admitting she blew her one chance. She should head back to the shore.

Only when she turns around, she finds the same face looking at her, this time with a weary expression. Cosima barely manages to keep down a yelp and another exclamation of surprise. Instead, she closes her eyes and takes a breath. When she opens them again, the woman is still there, watching her.

Cosima slowly raises a hand and waves at her, taking her time to sit down, her back presses against the lining of the boat. The other woman lifts her own hand and returns the gesture, a smile tugging at her lips. Suddenly, she turns her head sharply, a frown flickering across her features. She looks at Cosima again and there seems to be hesitation on her face before she waves again and then disappears.

Cosima scrambles up, leans over the railing and stares at the water. She tries to make out what might be happening in the depths below her, but for how clear the water is when she’s diving, there is absolutely no telling what is going on beneath the ocean’s surface.

With a frustrated sigh, she finally resigns herself to returning home for the day and to try again another time.

* * *

It takes almost a month until something happens. She’s invested in a bigger boat, one that allows her to store some gear and to stay out during the night. Cosima hopes that maybe the other woman’s curiosity will make her return then. If she’s right in her assumption that the girl was who saved her and has been following her, maybe she will be lured back by a change in Cosima’s routine, curiosity sparked by the object of her attention suddenly staying out at night.

She doesn’t see her on the first day, or the second, or the third. The fifth night that Cosima stays out is a particularly quiet one. The sea is calm and the drop in temperatures at night have Cosima bundled up in a wooly jacket when she hears the telltale splashing. She turns on her flashlight, searching the surface of the water around the boat, until she finds her. When she does, the grin on Cosima’s lips dies.

“Oh my God,” she whispers, scrambling to let down the ladder on the side of the boat and lowering herself into the water.

There are cuts all over the woman’s shoulders and chest and her left arm is caught in the remains of a fishing net, tying it to her torso. Before Cosima can do anything, the woman has her free arm wrapped around her and is clinging to her, her body shaking. Cosima’s trying to hold onto the ladder and runs her hand through the tangled mass of hair on the woman’s head, hoping to sooth her as she examines her predicament.

Untangling herself from the other girl is nearly impossible and the injured woman makes a sound that tears at Cosima’s heart, even though she tries to explain to her that she’s not leaving, she just has to get her knife.

To make things a little easier, Cosima lowers the plank into the water, too, because she can sit on that and have her hands free to work. It’s absolutely reckless, to do this without safety precautions, especially at night, when the lack of light basically transforms the sea into a vast blackness and there is no telling what may be lurking in its depths.

The girl is staring at her, watching every move of Cosima’s hands. She tries to be gentle and to not tug too much on the net, because it’s so tight and every little tug cuts into her skin, but she has to get the knife under it and move up, away from the girl’s body, or she risks cutting her.

When she’s done, her injured visitor makes no move to leave. Cosima remains sitting on the plank, legs dangling off its sides as the torso of the woman lies on it, eyes slowly drifting shut. She’s worried for a few moments, things she might be dying, but Cosima watches as her chest continues to rise and fall and she finally realizes that the other girl has just fallen asleep.

Shivering, Cosima slowly moves back up to the boat and dries herself up, wraps herself up in her blankets and falls asleep herself, her dreams filled with a half-naked girl clutching at her in desperation.

When she wakes up, the girl is gone. There’s only the bloody handprints on the plank telling Cosima the previous night’s events weren’t a dream.

* * *

It’s another week until she sees her again. By then, Cosima has started to refer to the other woman as Delphine.

The cuts on her body are slowly healing. They still look rather painful, the flesh around the wounds bloated, but it’s sunlight now and in the shimmering light and the reflections from the surface of the ocean, Cosima can see the numerous scars littering Delphine’s torso. It’s not the first time she got hurt, and it probably won’t have been the last time.

She brings Cosima a shell. A saltwater clam the brunette has seen a few times. Cosima’s sitting on the plank again, one leg on either side so she has her hands free. Delphine gestures at her knife, fingers moving in a series of elaborate gestures that makes Cosima watch her curiously before she simply offers the tool to her. Delphine inserts the blade into the clam and carefully pries it open, revealing a pearl inside.

Cosima gapes at the gift, a smile stealing across her face as she accepts both the oyster and her knife back.

“Thank you,” she says and watches as Delphine tilts her head, searching her face. She takes the moment to study her, to really look at her. She seemed younger before, but now Cosima can see faint lines around Delphine’s eyes, wondering if the other woman might be around her age, or maybe even older. Or perhaps younger?

Her hair is still this tangled mess that barely reaches her shoulders. Cosima tries to figure out the color, but with how wet it is, and the seaweed tangled in it, there really is no telling. Though it seems like it’s starting to slowly dry in the sun and to lighten, so maybe she’s a blonde?

Her eyes are a sort of murky green. Part of Cosima wishes she’d be able to compare it to the color of the ocean they’re in, but she’s never seen the sea in that color. It kind of resembles seaweed when it gets washed ashore and begins to dry.

And she’s definitely naked. Cosima figured, and noticed it the night Delphine showed up tangled in the fishing net. She doesn’t seem ashamed of her nakedness, nor confused by Cosima wearing clothes. Shortly below her navel, her skin starts changing color, taking on the quality of scales. They’re dark colors and have a pattern that reminds Cosima of the leopard sharks found in the Gulf of California.

Cosima can feel Delphine scrutinizing her, too. Especially her glasses. Cosima would’ve guessed that maybe her dreads would draw her attention, too, but Delphine doesn’t seem too impressed with them. When she hands her her glasses, hoping that they won’t end up on the ocean floor, Delphine examines them from every angle before she tries putting them on and shakes her head vehemently when she looks through them.

“Not your ordinary diving goggles, huh?” Cosima chuckles. Delphine’s eyes snap up and she watches her, putting the glasses aside before she reaches out, carefully touching her fingertips to Cosima’s lips.

“Okay,” she breathes, trying to remain still. “You don’t talk, do you?” she asks her, watching Delphine’s brows knit in confusion. She’d like to know how much the other woman actually hears. She seems to be able to breathe outside water just fine, but Cosima’s never heard her say anything. She did make that strangled, desperate sound the night she found her, but that was it. And earlier, it seemed more like Delphine was trying to communicate in sign language. Cosima took one ASL course at the beginning of college, but she doubts that Delphine would be able to understand that, anyway, if she’d be able to remember anything from it.

“I’m Cosima,” she tells her, touching her chest and repeating her name. Delphine’s eyes flicker to her hand and back to her lips. She makes no attempt at reproducing the sound, but something moves behind her eyes. Cosima does it again, rests her hand on her chests and says her name, and then she points at Delphine. Who frowns.

“Or maybe you don’t actually have a name,” Cosima murmurs with a sigh. “I’ll keep calling you Delphine, then, okay?”

Instead of an answer, Delphine dives below the surface.

“Hey!” Cosima calls after her, leaning over to search the ocean. “We have to work on your manners, that’s the second time-”

Her blood runs cold at something touching her leg and Cosima finds herself trying to pull it away quickly, but something pulls it back. It takes her panicked brain a moment to realize it’s not fangs digging in, but a hand carefully holding onto her ankle.

“Okay, so you didn’t disappear,” she mutters, closing her eyes as Delphine’s fingers trace along her calf, up and then back down, touching the sole of her foot. It makes her jerk back again and this time, Delphine lets go. When she resurfaces, there’s a grin on her face that Cosima returns, wondering if it was a coincidence or if Delphine may have had contact with humans before. May be aware of them being ticklish and did it on purpose.

Cosima gets up and puts on her oxygen tank and diving goggles, hoping that once she is done, Delphine will still be there. She doesn’t bother with the wetsuit, figures it would take too much time. When she falls overboard, it takes her a few seconds to get her bearings, but when she does, she finds utter joy in seeing Delphine slowly circle her, hair floating in the water.

She doesn’t touch the diving equipment, her utter lack of interest in it makes Cosima think that Delphine has encountered her fair share of divers before her. Enough of them to know that Cosima was in serious trouble when she rescued her. Because there is no doubt in her mind left that it was Delphine who saved her from drowning all that time ago.

She’s beautiful. There’s an effortlessness to her movements, a natural grace, that simply takes Cosima’s breath away. Delphine takes her hand and tugs her along, spins her around and makes Cosima dizzy. The tales of sailors resonate in her head, the stories of mermaids luring unsuspecting men to their death, and Cosima thinks that she understands those men. There’s something about Delphine that makes her forget caution, makes Cosima forget that the water is certainly not her element, isn’t her home and she’d die without the oxygen.

When Delphine gets particularly close to her, Cosima plucks up her courage to test a theory and touches her hair. Brushes it away from her ear. And sure enough, barely concealed behind it are a row of gills. Delphine in turn runs her fingers over the smooth skin behind Cosima’s ears, something flickering in her eyes.

What Cosima is utterly unprepared for is Delphine pulling open the strings of her bikini top. Her first instinct is to grab the fabric and keep it in place before she allows Delphine to tug it away, revealing Cosima’s chest. Delphine’s lips curl into a smile when she touches her breasts and then bumps her forehead against Cosima’s.

She notices that she’s running out of oxygen before Cosima does. Instead of abandoning her at the surface, Delphine stays with her, drags Cosima back to her boat. She waits until Cosima is back upstairs, shedding the equipment, before she disappears. Without a goodbye.

They really need to work on that.

* * *

She goes on diving excursions with Delphine.

They haven’t really worked out a way of communicating, except for pointing and nodding or shaking their heads. Whenever Delphine shows her something she thinks may be interesting, it’s accompanied by a series of gestures, but Cosima thinks that Delphine is always trying to relay more than merely the signs for what it is they are looking at and instead tells her a myriad of stories that are absolutely lost to Cosima, much to the brunette’s frustration.

Delphine has taken to lounging on the plank of Cosima’s boat. Her tail is in the water as she rests her torso on it, eyes closed and face turned up into the sun. She looks like she’s tanning, maybe she is, and Cosima wishes she’d be able to take a picture of her. Delphine seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to anything like that, because she always looks right at Cosima whenever the woman picks up her camera. And there is something about her that makes Cosima reluctant to preserve her image for anyone to see.

“I’d really like to know if there are more of you out there,” Cosima mumbles after another dive that’s left her feeling boneless and heavy and like she’s floating. “Like, I’m sure you have a family, or something. Don’t they wonder where you disappear to?”

Delphine has gotten used to the strange sounds Cosima produces and doesn’t really react to them the way she used to. She doesn’t stare at Cosima in marvel when she speaks any more but lets her ramble.

“Also, are there merdudes?” Cosima asks her, watching as Delphine tries untangling a knot from her hair. She reaches out and starts helping, Delphine’s hands falling away. The mermaid (oh God, that sounds so horribly cliché) looks out across the water before turning her head, tugging on her hair. Cosima barely manages to let go of it before she yanks on the tangled curls.

She’s so beautiful, and there is so much about her that leaves Cosima’s mind reeling; she has so many questions that still require an answer. Some of them on the more macabre end (like, how on earth does the tail work, what’s her bone structure like inside in, how do they reproduce, all of the hard-hitting biological facts), others come from curiosity about what their lives may be like. Do they live in swarms, do they have dwellings like in The Little Mermaid? Where do they sleep, what do they eat, how do they communicate? That Delphine keeps using sign language, and a system that seems rather elaborate at that, makes Cosima think she has regular contact with other merfolk, that they have a society with a need of communication strategies.

Suddenly, Delphine sits up, her eyes fixed on the horizon, her lips slowly morphing into a smile and then a huge grin.

“Co-si-ma,” she croaks, pointing, and Cosima so busy gaping at the other woman that she doesn’t notice what Delphine is trying to show her. When Delphine looks at her and notices her expression, she tilts her head, grin still in place, and makes a sign, turning Cosima’s head. It’s only then that Cosima tears her eyes away and scans the water, opening her mouth to ask what on earth Delphine meant. But then she sees them, flying through the water: dolphins. They’re long-beaked common dolphins, Cosima has never seen them around here before. But they’re definitely there, approaching them. Delphine lets out a laugh and slips into the water and Cosima jumps in after her, trying to keep up.

They’re beautiful animals, jumping from the water and turning in the air, performing acrobatics. There must be twenty of them, though it’s kind of hard to tell. They’re fast and close and Cosima is kind of overwhelmed.

And then she dives to observe them under water and sees Delphine playing with the calf, like a human might be playing with a dog. They’re racing each other, the calf bumping her with its head, Delphine rubbing her back against it. Cosima’s lungs are burning and she swims back to the surface and inhales greedily as the calf does the same. Delphine’s head pops up close to her and Cosima shares her grin.

“This is amazing,” she shouts over the sound of twenty dolphins breathing and jumping from the water. Delphine doesn’t respond, she just laughs, happiness all over her face. The calf comes up close to them, making clicking sounds, and Delphine swims over to it, resting her forehead against its head, hands rubbing over its sides. When she lets go, it swims back to the adults who’re already leaving. None of them got anywhere as close to Cosima as they got to Delphine. They allowed her right into their midst, but the calf hesitated coming close when it noticed Cosima.

* * *

She tries to tell Delphine that she won’t be able to be out in the ocean with her every day. But there is still the language barrier, and Cosima isn’t sure if the other woman understands. She feels bad the entire time she’s forced to stay on land, in the library or at home, writing and analyzing and trying to advance her thesis.

When she finally has a day off again, over two months have passed and there is no sign of Delphine at the spot they used to meet at. Cosima stays out as long as she dares to, but no one shows up, and when she returns to shore, she feels utterly devastated that her dream is over.

The truth is, she’s gotten attached to the strange woman (calling her mermaid still feels wrong somehow). She enjoyed their time together, loved observing Delphine and learning everything possible about her. Cosima misses their interactions, misses their dives and Delphine’s tours, misses her company.

When she finally sees her again, she feels so relieved that she hugs Delphine as if her life depends on it and presses her forehead against hers.

“That’s how you greet people, right?” Cosima asks, watches as Delphine’s eyes close and feels her stroke over Cosima’s sides gently.

“Co-si-ma,” Delphine sighs, the tension slowly leaving her body. Instead of her taking Cosima on a tour like they used to go on before, Delphine stays close to the boat and hugs her under water, pressing herself against her. For all her joyful energy, Delphine rarely touched Cosima in the past. She took her by the hand and pulled her along, sure, but that’s about it. She tolerated Cosima touching her in the beginning, when Cosima was satisfying her curiosity. When it ended, the brunette is not sure, only that Delphine started pulling away when she reached for her one day, and Cosima accepted it.

But the contact now is reassuring, it makes Cosima feel even more like she’s floating. She can’t get enough of touching Delphine, can’t stop running her hands over the other woman’s sides. There’s an odd expression on Delphine’s face when Cosima does it and it takes Delphine throwing her head back with her lips parted for her to begin to understand what’s happening. She’s had lovers before that were extremely responsive to her touch, but this, this is a whole new level of it, and she hadn’t even intended to elicit that kind of response in Delphine.

The other woman clings to her, rests her face in Cosima’s neck, and even though it is Delphine keeping their heads above the water, Cosima feels like she’s the one holding the other woman and comforting her.

* * *

Cosima has no idea why she didn’t think of this before, but she finally grabs a magna doodle and starts drawing different stuff in a new attempt to communicate with Delphine.

She tried pictures before, but that was messy, given that they’re surrounded by water, and Delphine wanted to touch and hold them. And even if Cosima had an under-water camera, she is well aware of Delphine’s uncanny ability to spot them and her refusal to be captured by one, so her taking pictures of her world, her surroundings and her life isn’t something that Cosima thinks is going to happen.

So Cosima draws on the thing and gestures and hopes that Delphine understands. It takes a few days, but when Cosima draws a plane over water to tell her of a vacation she went on, Delphine’s brows furrow and she takes the pen for the first time. She erases Cosima’s doodle and re-draws the squiggly line that Cosima used for the ocean, but Delphine’s attempt at a plane ends up in the water. Cosima blinks. Delphine’s movements were too deliberate for this to be a mistake.

“Did you see a plane crash?” Cosima asks her, motioning to her eyes and the doodle. Delphine frowns, then shakes her head. Next thing she knows, there’s a stick figure with tail on the plane and Delphine points from herself to the figure.

“You? That’s you? You were on a plane?” the scientist tries to understand, frustration growing, because the reason why they’ve resorted to drawings was because Delphine does not understand her words. She smiles and reacts to Cosima’s tone generally, but she never showed an awareness of the content of Cosima’s words. She might as well have been reading a cookbook to the other woman.

A shadow crosses over Delphine’s face and she erases the doodle before crossing out the tablet and putting the pen back in. Cosima tries, but it doesn’t even take ten minutes for Delphine to wave and then disappear back into the ocean, leaving the brunette to tear at her dreads.

There’s something about the drawing and Delphine’s reaction that has her on edge. The woman’s refusal to meet Cosima’s eyes afterwards, how the laughter went out of her eyes completely. She’s never seen it before, but Delphine’s skin had broken out into goosebumps, even though she usually doesn’t seem to be affected by changes in temperature.

Cosima shakes her head, frowning down at the Magna Doodle. She thought it might bring her some answers and help her understand Delphine, but all it did was lead to more questions than Cosima could hope to find answers to.

* * *

Delphine has a fascination with all things shiny. Cosima has spent what probably now amounts to hours watching her examine her bracelets and toy around with them and the pendants on them.

She hopes that mermaids know the concept to gift-giving in an effort to apologize, because Cosima is out of ways to make Delphine understand she’s sorry about what happened, even if she’s not entirely sure what that may have been.

When Delphine shows up again, two days after the plane doodle incident, Cosima shows her a bracelet with a glass pendant in the shape of a clown fish. Delphine stares at it, turns it in the light and watches it catch on the colorful glass ornament. Cosima considered a silver or gold charm, but figured that, with her living quarters, glass was the more permanent option. The bracelet itself is leather, but Cosima is certain that Delphine will be able to find a replacement if it snaps or rots or anything.

Delphine’s face lights up in a beautiful smile when Cosima fastens the bracelet around her left wrist (she tried her right, because Delphine drew with her right one, but the other woman steadfastly held out her left one when she caught onto what Cosima was trying to do).

In thanks, Delphine kisses her. It’s an innocent brushing of their lips at first, but Cosima immediately has the memory of Delphine’s flushed face and parted lips in her mind upon contact. They never talked about what happened naturally, and Delphine didn’t let her touch like that again or attempted to do something similar with Cosima. But when she looks at her in surprise now, there’s a spark of something in Delphine’s eyes and then she leans in again, her hand cradling the back of Cosima’s head. Cosima can feel her tongue trace over her lips and even though it should feel wrong, she cannot help herself and opens her mouth. Kissing Delphine feels amazing and all kinds of right, like it’s exactly what Cosima is supposed to be doing.

She’s never kissed anyone like this before. Delphine tastes like the ocean, like salt water and seaweed and eternity and Cosima feels like she is drowning, even though her face is well above the water’s surface. Feels like she’s slowly going under, drowning in Delphine and her proximity. She doesn’t want to ever let go of her again, doesn’t care about her life or school or her thesis or her degree; Cosima would give all of that up in a heartbeat if that meant she’d be able to stay in the ocean, with Delphine, just kissing her and holding her and not having to ever spend another second apart from her.

* * *

Random bouts of insomnia have been plaguing Cosima since she was a teenager. Night where she just cannot fall asleep and tosses and turns before finally giving up. The ocean used to calm her then, Cosima would take a walk on the beach and listen to the waves and let the water lap at her feet. Now she knows that somewhere out there, there’s a beautiful woman, a mermaid, that will be waiting for her, and it just increases Cosima’s restlessness.

She’s been looking up plane crashes for a while now. At first, it had been because Cosima had wanted to see if there were any plane wrecks close to where they are. She’d interpreted Delphine’s doodle to mean that the woman had been diving in the remains of a plane, had perhaps seen one go down and witnessed the aftermath of it.

But in her looking up variations of the mermaid myth, another reason had crept into Cosima’s head and it’s been one that Cosima hasn’t been able to shake. Delphine hadn’t drawn a plane fully submerged in water, it had been one nose-diving into the ocean. If she’d actually just swam around in the remains of a plane, then surely, Delphine would have drawn that scene, with the plane on the ocean floor and her inside it.

But she hadn’t. Delphine’s plane had only been half-submerged. And what was more, it had been distinctly smaller than the one Cosima had drawn.

On a whim, she starts looking into private airplane accidents, planes getting lost during flights over the ocean. Then Cosima narrows it down further, looks for those with casualties, with people going missing and remaining lost at sea, and then specifies that at least one of those missing would have to be female.

It’s not easy weeding through the results, but when Cosima finds the newspaper article, her heart jumps in her throat when she goes through the pictures of the five people that have perished, three of which never had their bodies found. Cosima’s hand barely stifles her scream when she finds herself staring at an image of Delphine’s face, looking right into the camera.

It’s a headshot taken from an employee badge of the multi-national Delphine had worked for.

_From left to right: Doctors Leekie, Duncan and Cormier, pilots Richard Millson and Gerard Andrews._

Delphine’s picture is smack in the middle.

“You’re a doctor?” Cosima whispers, staring at the other woman’s face, so different but still the same. Her hair is in a bun, keeping it away from her face. Even though Delphine hasn’t visibly aged (upon checking the date of the article, Cosima finds it happened a little over three years ago), she seems so different in that picture that it’s hard to reunite the two personas, it’s almost impossible to believe that Doctor Cormier is actually Delphine.

The article doesn’t give a reason as to why they were on board the plane, what they were doing. A little surface research for the cooperation reveals that they basically have their fingers in every pie possible, from deep sea research to advancements in stem cell research, so Cosima couldn’t possibly begin to figure it out.

There’s no name, no age, no further information on any of the people on the plane listed. Entering Delphine’s human name brings up too many doctors with that surname for Cosima to wield through the results, especially because half of them seem to be French.

As she leans back in her desk chair and rubs her eyes, the sun is starting to rise. Cosima bites her lip before hitting “print” on the article. She then blows up Delphine’s ID picture and prints that out again, to have a bigger version of it. She’s got absolutely no idea what she intends to do with them, but feels like she’ll need them.

* * *

That day, Cosima is out three hours before her usual time, unable to sit still in her apartment. She goes diving, in an attempt to calm herself with looking at cute fish, but it does not help the slightest. When she’s back at the boat, there is no trace of Delphine. By the time she finally arrives, two hours after she usually does, Cosima’s heart is hammering in her throat, her fingers trembling as she digs around in her backpack to procure the article and picture.

“That’s you, isn’t it?” she asks Delphine, who just frowns at the written text. Cosima taps her picture, draws Delphine’s attention to it. And watches as the color fades from her face. Delphine vehemently shakes her head, pushes herself off from the plank and slips back into the water, her tail splashing around.

“I don’t understand it, but that, that is you,” Cosima argues, holding up the big picture. Delphine’s eyes dart from her to the paper before she glares at Cosima, her arms crossing over her chest, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“You remembered it, when you drew that picture, of the plane. And you understand me, stop playing dumb,” the dreadlocked woman snaps in frustration at the confusion in Delphine’s eyes. She watches as the mermaid huffs before diving into the ocean, her tail splashing Cosima upon her exit. An angry growl escapes Cosima’s throat as she stomps her foot.

This is bullshit. All this time, Delphine was jerking her chain, played her for a fool. She understands Cosima, and she can talk. She just refuses to.

Maybe Cosima should refuse herself, too.

* * *

In anger, Cosima hasn’t always made the best choices. Perhaps her parents would think otherwise if they saw the progress Cosima makes in the three months she does not set a foot onto her boat. Instead, she holes herself up in the lab and finally finishes her thesis and hands it in.

She gets the date for when she has to defend it, and only then does she take the boat out to again. She wants to be alone with her thoughts, the sound of the ocean helps her think. She steers clear of the place she met with Delphine, opting for a small coral reef instead.

When the first drop of water hits her, Cosima knows who sent it. She closes her eyes and tells herself to be strong. And lasts for an hour, lying on the floor of the boat, reading Darwin. But the water evolved into pebbles and then they stop and Cosima can hear what sounds a lot like sobs. Like the keening sound Delphine made all that time ago, when she came to Cosima, injured and bleeding. And even though she’s still pissed, is still furious when she thinks about how much of a fool she made of herself, Cosima scrambles up and goes to check on her and finds Delphine’s head barely above the water’s surface, tears flowing down it.

Cosima sighs and lowers the plank before changing into her wetsuit. As soon as she’s within reach, Delphine hugs her, knocks her off the plank and holds onto Cosima, who splutters and wipes the salt water from her face.

“I’m still pissed with you,” she informs Delphine, who’s giving her a sheepish smile. Her eyes are red and Cosima reaches out, carefully wiping over the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“Co-si-ma,” Delphine sighs, resting her head against hers in a gesture that feels so familiar and relieved that Cosima’s heart aches and she starts relaxing.

She tries talking to Delphine again, once she’s back on the plank, and quickly grows frustrated when Delphine doesn’t answer, just looks at her with big eyes and signs and tries to touch her. Cosima’s ready to lash out at her, to yell and rage, when she realizes the confusion in Delphine’s eyes is genuine.

Her hands fall to her sides and she stares at Delphine, shocked.

“You really don’t understand, do you?” she breathes. Delphine’s brows twitch but she doesn’t say anything. Cosima closes her eyes and takes a breath.

“Fuck,” is all she can think of and it perfectly sums up the entire situation. She’s found someone the rest of the world believes to have died in a plane crash, but that someone has somehow turned into a mermaid and she doesn’t understand humans any more. How on earth is that possible?

She doesn’t realize she’s crying before she feels Delphine’s damp hand wiping away a tear from her cheek. When Cosima looks at her again, she seems concerned, searches her face before she leans in for a tentative kiss. And Cosima kisses back, because it’s the only thing to do that she can think of, and because she remembers the feeling from before. Remembers that kissing Delphine has a way of making Cosima’s worries disappear, until all that counts is that she’s with her, that her and Delphine are together, and that is all that matters.

* * *

The day she’s supposed to walk in front of the board and defend her thesis and take the final step to earning her PhD, Cosima writes a letter to her parents to tell them how much she loves them. Then she pulls the door to her apartment shut behind her, the tank of oxygen resting on her shoulder.

The marina is sleepy and she doesn’t see anyone as she boards her boat.

At precisely 9:30 am, Cosima lets herself fall overboard, the oxygen tank on her back, mozth piece firmly between her teeth, diving googles on her nose but naked otherwise.

Delphine is waiting for her by a formation of rocks. She seems nervous, agitated, the smile she gives Cosima looks forced to her. She takes her by the hand and holds her close, prevents them from floating apart. Cosima eyes the pressure indicator, then nods.

Delphine carefully releases her diving goggles as Cosima slips the tank off her back. She breathes in again and lets go of the mouthpiece, holding tightly onto Delphine instead, eyes pressed shut.

She feels Delphine’s forehead rest against hers, feels her lips brush over Cosima’s. Her lungs begin to burn like they did the day she almost drowned. Cosima feels panic starts bubbling up inside her and her hold on Delphine tightens. Involuntarily, her mouth opens and she releases the air before breathing in desperately, water filling her mouth and then Delphine kisses her and Cosima tries to kiss back, but there’s panic filling her, she can’t breathe, she’s surrounded by water, she’s drowning, oh God, she’s drowning, she’s going to die, she’s not going to make it, this was a stupid idea, how could anyone be so stupid to believe in any of this, to think this might work, oh God, no, no, she can’t do this, she has to get to the surface-

Cosima shakes her head and tries to scream but all it does is make more water rush into her mouth, makes her breathe in more of it. Everything hurts, she can’t see, her chest feels like it’s going to explode, her lungs are on fire and _she didn’t want to die like this_.

* * *

The dolphin calf seems to be smiling when it floats in front of her, watching her. As soon as she reaches out a hand, it darts away, a game of tag beginning.

She chases after it, following it through the swarm, weaving around the adults, who pay them no mind.

Finally, Cosima managed to draw up to it and strokes the calf’s side before they break the surface, jumping and turning in the air in sync before diving back below the surface.

Stunts like this still leave her slightly disoriented. Cosima shakes her head and tries to get her bearings. When she does, she spots Delphine, arms crossed over her bare chest. She’s floating upside-down, her hair forming a halo around her head.

Cosima snorts and swims over to her, fingers reaching out to tickle. Delphine’s flanks are sensitive, Cosima always manages to make her open her mouth in a silent shriek before she starts retaliating. Either Delphine’s been getting better at this, or Cosima’s sides have grown more sensitive to touch. She wants to bet it’s the latter, especially because she’s been noticing how Delphine’s touch takes less time to affect her now, takes almost no time at all until Cosima has her eyes closed and pleasure is cursing through her veins, hot and heavy.

Her signing is still clumsy, even though Delphine is an amazing and patient teacher, and the others have been helping out a lot. Cosima doesn’t know their names, only faces and the signs that accompany the introductions, though she struggles to mimic them. She’d never have guessed it, but there is a coven of over a dozen merfolk living in the area. They provide security for each other. Most of the time, hunting is done in a group by the men, though they don’t argue against taking women with them.

The skin behind her ears itches most of the time, and Delphine swats her hand away when she catches Cosima trying to scratch her newly formed gills.

Her life before drowning seems like a distant dream, the details growing more fuzzy and harder to grasp the more time passes. She’s not sure and merfolk don’t have a concept of time in the sense that humans are used to.

She knows they are slowly making their way south, can feel it, somehow. The water seems to taste different here, and there are fish that Cosima has never seen before.

Her legs have fused together and the skin slowly falling off in patches to reveal brightly colored scales. It itches, so badly sometimes that Cosima is about to jump out of her skin. Delphine doesn’t keep her from scratching them, or rather, attempting to. Every day, Cosima eyes what used to be her legs, what now is slowly becoming her tail, and tries to figure out the pattern on it. Everyone’s tail in the colony looks different, she’s found. Even if the general colors are similar in some, their patterns are always different. There’s a merman that has a tail that, at first glance, looked extremely similar to Delphine’s, but on closer inspection Cosima saw that their patterns are different. His name consists of the signs for “smile” and “danger”.

Delphine takes her hand and starts pulling her in the direction of the others. Cosima sighs, she’d like to stay with the dolphins for longer than this, but the amusement dancing in Delphine’s eyes when she pulls her against her tells her she’ll find some more adventure waiting for her later, if she does as she’s told now.

Sometimes, at night, when they’re all floating and resting and Cosima drifts off to sleep, she dreams of her human life. In her dreams, she’s a child, running through the waves, holding hands with two adults. It always takes her a few moments upon waking to realize these people are her parents. She’s slowly forgetting what they looked like and it fills her with dread. She never wanted to do that, never wanted to forget all the wonderful people she met. But gradually, Cosima realizes that, while their faces are slowly fading, the thought of them fills her with warmth. She doesn’t remember the way her mother’s hair used to fall down her back, or how the sunlight reflected off her father’s glasses, but she remembers what it felt like, being held by them. Remembers kisses upon her brow and love flowing through her.

When Delphine rests her forehead against hers and kisses Cosima, it feels the same way. It feels warm and gentle and like coming home after a long journey.


	11. childcare AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for how long it has been taking me to post another chapter.

“Delphine?”

She looks up from the puzzle to find Felix standing there, eyes big and his stuffed tiger clutched tightly to his chest.

“Yes?” she replies, giving the boy a smile.

“Why are you sad?” the boy asks, rubbing the stuffed animal over his face, wiping his nose on it. Delphine blinks at him in surprise, her eyes darting to her colleague. Who has her back turned, but she doesn’t miss the tension in Cosima’s shoulders.

“What makes you think I’m sad?” she asks him, allowing Felix to sit in her lap after he shrugs.

“You look sad,” he tells her, watching her. She contemplates her options. Felix is a sensitive child, very attuned to people’s moods. That he is talking now is a small miracle; when he first started coming here almost nine months ago, he refused to speak, all vocal outbursts happening in the forms of incoherent screaming and screeching. His foster sister wasn’t that much better, but the two have come a long way. Some of it certainly has to do with Felix having taken a liking to Cosima. Delphine is well aware that the boy usually goes to her colleague instead of her, that she’s second choice when he wants to be comforted or has a question. That he’d come to her and ask her what’s going on… It’s strange and it means that it is bothering him, even if he can’t articulate it at his age just yet.

“You know, I am a little sad,” she admits, lowering her voice to a conspiring whisper.

“Why?” Felix whispers back, eyes glued to her face. It’s a dilemma, really. Because there is no way Delphine can tell him the reason for her down mood. Can’t tell him anything, really, not that she’s been crying herself to sleep the past week, can’t tell him that she’s taking a lot longer to drag herself out of bed than usual. Can’t tell him how her heart is hammering in her chest in the morning, when it’s just her and Cosima and only two children before the others arrive and there is no way of avoiding each other.

“Sometimes, grown-ups get sad,” she tells him, running her hand through his soft hair. “It’s not something you or anyone else did. You know how I’m from France, from another country?” she asks the boy and Felix nods enthusiastically. That was her opening with him and his foster sister, the shared strangers-in-a-strange-land experience. They were homesick without knowing what that was, and they managed to bond over that, before Sarah started school.

“Sometimes, I miss France. And then I get sad.”

“I miss In-lan’, too,” Felix tells her, frowning. “Mrs S always makes me tea and fish fingers when I tell her I miss it. Maybe you need to eat fish fingers,” he suggests, a solemn expression on his face. Delphine feels a laugh bubble up inside of her and can’t stop it. She hugs the boy, drawing a deep breath.

“Thank you,” she tells him. “But we don’t really eat that in France. Maybe I need a nice croissant, though,” she admits, watching as Felix’s brows furrow.

“What’s a ‘sant?”

“It’s a fluffy pastry. You can put jam on it, or nutella,” Cosima tells the boy, sitting down at the table. Delphine avoids her eyes and enjoys some more cuddles with Felix before he races off to play with Alison.

“I know you’re angry with me-”

“I’m not,” Delphine shakes her head, keeping her voice low in order to not spook the kids. She knows they are aware of the tension between her and Cosima, knows that they need to get over themselves. And she’s trying to, really, only it’s proving a little difficult. Though it’s the truth, she’s not angry. Why should she be, all Cosima did was find the courage to stop something that would have certainly turned into a train wreck.

But that doesn’t mean Delphine isn’t sad or that she doesn’t wish things could be different. That she wishes they could go back to three weeks ago, when everything was fine and she couldn’t stop smiling. She also couldn’t stop touching Cosima, couldn’t keep her hands off her. And neither could Cosima, leading to lovely lunch breaks in one of their cars, kissing like teenagers and not eating and being drunk on love.

Deep down, Delphine knows they were absolutely reckless and that it was only a matter of time before they’d have gotten caught. That if they had been, they’d both gotten fired. It’s not something either one of them wants, especially not in the middle of the year, when it’s going to have such a huge impact on the children.

Still, she wants to be with Cosima. And that’s what’s making this so hard: that they both want to be together but can’t, that, while the break-up was unanimous, it was not what they truly wanted.

Cosima sighs, pushing her glasses into her dreads and resting her face in her hands.

“This is ridiculous,” she mutters, shaking her head before she looks up at Delphine again. “I spoke to Ethan, he’s looking for a replacement for me.”

Delphine feels her jaw drop and instantly, tears are welling up in her eyes. The only reason she’s made it this far, has managed to keep it together, was because she was still able to see Cosima. No matter how much it hurts to be this close and unable to touch, it’s still better than never seeing her face again.

“Cosima…” she breathes in a strangled whisper that makes the other woman look at her sharply. Cosima’s eyes widen and she quickly shakes her head.

“No,” she husks, reaching out and grabbing Delphine’s hand, squeezing it hard enough to be painful. “Delphine, I’ve just given him my notice because I can’t keep doing this. I wanna be with you but as long as we’re both working here, that’s not possible.”

Her eyebrows twitch and Delphine frowns in confusion, her mind slowly stopping the panicked spiral it was on.

“You… want to be with me?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. Cosima’s lips twitch and her brown eyes sparkle as she nods.

“Yeah, obvs,” she grins, her tongue poking out behind her teeth before she sobers. “I’ve started looking into other fields, reached out to a few group homes that are looking to hire. It would mean being on call 24/7 most of the time, but these kids… I think it’s something I want to do.”

She swallows and slowly nods. Cosima has this thing of being drawn to the kids that are in desperate need of care and affection. She’d mentioned it before, to Delphine, her wish to work with older children and teenagers, but that she’d previously gotten rejected due to her age and inexperience. That the places told her to get some experience with “normal” kids before tackling the ones so broken that some people consider them beyond repair and just want to minimize the damage they’re going to inflict on society.

“Then you should,” she tells her, turning her hand slowly to entwine their fingers. Cosima looks down at them and draws a slow breath.

“We just have to hold on, until I get hired or Ethan’s found a replacement, whichever comes first,” she mutters and Delphine finds herself nodding.

“Yes. We’ll manage,” she agrees, mentally starting to already cross out days on the calendar and praying that their boss finds a replacement that fits with the children and Delphine soon.


	12. teachers AU

She feels like a schoolgirl again, standing in front of the principal’s desk, hands at her sides as she attempts to keep herself from fidgeting. Aldous purses his lips and looks at the file in front of him before his eyes go to search her face again. Delphine remains still, merely dares to raise an eyebrow in silent inquiry as to why she was ordered into his office.

The door opens and the head of the Science Department walks in to stand next to her and Delphine knows they are screwed. She sees it in the way that Aldous looks at the other woman, then back at her and purses his lips again. They are fucked.

“Would either one of you like to explain to me why there is a cartoon on the school website that is rather explicit in nature about the reason the two of you spent time together in the second floor utility closet?”

_Oh fuck._

* * *

_Oh fuck._

Delphine throws her head back, hitting the brick wall with a soft thud as she screws her eyes shut. Her entire body feels like it’s being set on fire, her hands search for purchase, gripping at the other woman’s clothes.

“Cosima-” she breathes, her breath catching when her colleague’s hand changes its angle and then her lips find Delphine’s in a heated kiss.

“Shush,” she murmurs, starting to trail open-mouthed kisses along Delphine’s jaw and neck. There’s a distant voice reminding Delphine that she can’t show up to afternoon classes with a fresh hickey, but it gets silenced immediately when her world suddenly explodes and she feels Cosima press her hand over her mouth in an attempt to keep the noise down.

When she’s able to focus again, she finds herself looking into Cosima’s smug grin, glasses pushed up into her dreads. Delphine shakes her head at the other woman and rests her forehead against Cosima’s briefly before she brushes her lips over the brunette’s.

“Feeling better?” Cosima whispers, drawing a shaky laugh from the blonde.

“Oui,” Delphine nods, unhooking her leg from around Cosima’s waist. Her skirt will have murderous wrinkles now, but that’s something the students will probably not care about and their fellow teacher colleagues would not dream to comment on. She raises her hands, tangling them in Cosima’s dreads, watching her face.

Five weeks ago, they swore up and down that whatever feelings they had for each other would not impact their work. They would be professionals and leave their personal relationship off the school grounds. Delphine blinks and wonders how they got from avoiding each other in the hallways and timing their arrivals in the morning to carelessly having sex in the second floor broom closet. Maybe it’s because the kids have been absolutely horrendous today, maybe it’s because Cosima had a parent-teacher meeting last night so they couldn’t see each other and she was forced to fall asleep by herself. Or maybe it’s simply that they have no self-control whatsoever and are acting much like the teenagers they are supposed to be teaching. It doesn’t really matter, what matters is that she wants nothing more than to kiss the smug grin off Cosima’s face and spend an hour more in the closet with her. But the bell rings and Cosima’s face falls.

“I have a class to teach. AP Science,” she sighs, resting her forehead against Delphine’s, who shudders at the thought of the classroom waiting for her. Another lessons where she gets paid to hear American teenagers butcher the French language and attempts not to flinch too hard.

Cosima lets go of her and puts her glasses back on before cracking the door to the closet open to peek out into the hallway. She blows Delphine a kiss before leaving, closing the door behind her. The French woman takes a slow breath and smoothes down her skirt, contemplating if she should take a trip to the bathroom to check her face, but deciding against it. The hallway is empty when she steps out of the closet and hurries down the corridor to her class, hoping that the students have not started killing each other just yet. She’s definitely counting down the days when the French teacher returns from maternity leave and she can go back to teaching Science classes.


	13. wedding planner AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for the lack in writing/posting. Sorry.

It’s really one of the most clichée things in the book. Like, seriously, how many badly written romance novels or even movies are out there where the wedding planner falls in love with half of the wedding party? Must be a hundred, probably.

She used to think she had an ethical code, but apparently, she doesn’t. Else Cosima would’ve definitely already told the couple to find someone else to plan their wedding. Or she would have recommended someone else, helped them, even. But under no circumstances would she have stayed on the job and even told the woman to call her anytime.

The thing is, Cosima usually has a pretty good eye for couples. It doesn’t matter if they are freshly out of college and looking at each other with puppy faces, or if it’s an older couple that has found love again after a bad experience with someone else. She can tell when people are in love and when they mean what they’re saying. Which means she has turned down a few clients where she got an off feeling about them. This couple, though…

Like, Richard is looking at Delphine like she hung the moon, he is obviously in love with her. And Cosima could’ve sworn that it was the same for Delphine. She used to look at him with so much affection, but now, the closer they are getting to the date, the more detailed everything becomes and the more time Cosima invests, she finds that there is something very strange about the bride-to-be’s behavior. Something that doesn’t really add up.

She usually doesn’t take calls in the middle of the night. But when she sees her cell phone flashing with Delphine’s name, Cosima sighs, closes her eyes and then shakes her head as she grabs the thing.

“If you’re going to tell me you have changed your mind about the color scheme, you better hang up right now,” she greets the other woman. It wouldn’t be the first time, even though the wedding will be in ten days. Cosima has dealt with some… interesting people, shall we put it.

The sniffle coming from the other end of the line makes her sit up in bed, worry seizing her.

“Delphine, are you alright?” she asks, her heart beginning to hammer in her chest.

“ _ Non _ ,” the other woman breathes, a sob escaping her as Cosima throws the covers back and starts searching for her pants.

“What happened?” she inquires, forcing herself to take a slow breath. Richard has never struck her as the violent type, so she’s pretty certain it’s not that kind of thing that has the other woman in tears. Couples fight, especially close to getting married. Tension are high. Most of the time, nothing is as bad as it seems, it’s usually all fixable, with a good night’s sleep and a calm conversation that often features her as a mediator of sorts.

“He threw me out,” Delphine’s broken voice carries over the line. “He told me to pack my things and leave, he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore, he hates me-”

“Okay, okay,” Cosima interrupts as the other woman starts crying. She rubs a hand over her face, resisting the urge to bang her head against the wall. “Where are you now?”

“I don’t know,” the French woman sniffles, “I walked for a few blocks, but it started raining, and I forgot my purse, so I don’t have any money…” she trails off.

“Okay, don’t worry about that,” Cosima tells her, managing to put on a shirt before she grabs her coat and car keys. “We’ll figure something out. I’m going to pick you up, you can crash at my place. Tomorrow, everything will sort itself out.”

It turns out that in the morning, things look even worse. When Cosima had finally found Delphine the night before, it had been obvious the other woman had been crying. She’d told Cosima she didn’t want to talk about it and refused to meet her eyes, so Cosima had let her be. After a shower, Delphine had fallen asleep on Cosima’s couch, with the other woman watching and wondering what exactly had happened between her and Richard. The man hadn’t tried to contact either of them, as far as Cosima was aware.

So when she hands Delphine a mug of steaming coffee and asks what has happened, Cosima is basically prepared for anything, really.

“I think I’m in love with someone else,” Delphine mutters, taking a sip of the drink, face contorting in pain as the hot liquid runs down her throat. Cosima slowly sinks into her armchair, mouth hanging open in surprise. The signs had been there, of course, but she’d never had considered that possibility.

“Okay,” she breathes slowly, blowing across the steaming liquid and taking a tentative sip.

Delphine sighs and sets her mug down. Her hands go up to hide her face before she rubs them over it and tangles them in her blonde curls briefly. She watches Cosima briefly until she rises with a sharp shake of her head.

“You must think I’m crazy. I’m getting married in less than two weeks and I have nothing better to do than tell my fiancé that I may have fallen in love with someone else,” she mumbles, reaching up to bite the nail of her thumb.

“Not really,” Cosima shrugs. “I’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve seen some shit. Sorry,” she apologizes for the language, but the blonde waves her off. “I am a little surprised about the timing, though.”

Delphine nods, resting a hand over her forehead, the other at her back.

“I tried to ignore it, but the more I tried, the stronger the feelings grew and… I couldn’t lie to Richard. Every time he touched me, I closed my eyes and hoped that- it was not fair on him, and not on me, and… Cosima, I think I might be gay.”

Now that has Cosima’s jaw drop in shock before she starts laughing. Delphine’s face full of worry slowly morphs into one of anger as Cosima tries to contain her giggles.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, swallowing and trying to rid herself of her amusement. It’s not funny, not really. But the deer-in-the-headlights look Delphine just wore was too much. The entire situation is just absolutely ridiculous. Cosima’s fallen for a client and the woman breaks up with her fiancé a little over a week until the wedding because she’s suddenly uncertain of her sexuality? Oh God, Sarah would be having a field day with this.

“Maybe I should leave,” Delphine says, crossing her arms. There’s a hurt and sudden coldness in her eyes that strikes Cosima. “So you can have a laugh at my expense without feeling bad about it.”

“I’m sorry, Delphine,” Cosima apologizes. “It’s just… how old are you, again? And you’re trying to tell me you’ve never before had any feelings that made you doubt you are hetero?”

Delphine’s jaw clenches and she looks away, answering Cosima’s question well enough.

“Look, even if you’re not straight,” Cosima tries, scooting to the edge of her seat, “I saw you and Richard together. It seemed like you really cared about him. Maybe it’s just nerves. Our minds have a weird way of messing with us.”

The blonde woman sighs, raking her hands through her hair before she shakes her head.

“I can’t do this,” she mutters, giving another shake of her head. “I’m sorry, I- I can’t do it.”

“Do what?” Cosima asks, following the other woman as Delphine goes down the hall. She watches her grab her jacket, alarm bells going off in her head. “Delphine-”

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this,” the French woman apologizes as she opens the door. “Just send me an email with all your expenses until this point, I’ll make sure you get compensated for everything.”

“Delphine, wait, you can’t just leave. Where are you going to go?” Cosima tries to reason with her, but Delphine’s expression is one of intense fear and she’s not fast enough to grab the woman’s arm.

“I, I have to go,” Delphine stammers and then practically runs down the hallway. Cosima curses and goes in to grab her keys. She almost falls down the stairs in her attempt to catch up with the other woman, but by the time she’s on the first floor, there is no sign of Delphine. Cosima even goes outside, the ground cold beneath her naked feet, but she can’t see Delphine’s form anywhere, and she’s not about to follow her barefoot.

_ Crap! _

* * *

“ _ You have ONE new message. _ ”

Cosima lets out a groan as she flops down onto her couch.

“Go away,” she declares, but the machine starts playing it anyway.

“ _ Uh, hello Cosima. _ ”

The voice makes the brunette shoot up, her back protesting at the sudden movement. Cosima stares at her phone, wonders if she’s so overworked that she has started hallucinating.

“ _ It’s Delphine. Cormier? You were planning my wedding a few months ago, but it didn’t happen and- _ ” Delphine pauses and Cosima hears her exhale loudly. “ _ I’m sorry, maybe I should not have called, but I, wanted to apologize. For the trouble I caused. _ ” There’s another brief pause and Cosima can just imagine her biting her lip. “ _ I’m sorry, Cosima. Goodbye. _ ”

“ _ End of message ONE. You have NO new messages. _ ”

Cosima blinks at her phone before scrambling up and grabbing it with shaking hands, hoping, praying that Delphine didn’t block her number as she goes through the list of missed calls.

She tried calling Delphine a few times, but the other woman always declined the calls. Richard was not one to talk to Cosima, either. She tried to talk to him about his fiancée, but he blocked all of that and was only interested in the cost of Cosima’s services, so he could give that to Delphine. He didn’t have a new address, said they only communicated by email, and Cosima got a general feeling that Delphine had been right in her assumption that her ex-fiancé hadn’t been of the particularly forgiving sort. He hadn’t seemed sorry for one second, only really pissed off, a state that only seemed to increase the longer Cosima attempted to talk to him. She’d finally given up on needling anything about Delphine out of him, but she had been extremely worried about the other woman. And the swift manner in which she’d found the money she’d billed them in her account hadn’t helped any. Perhaps it had been Delphine’s way of trying to leave everything behind as fast as possible and get over what had happened between her and Richard (not that Cosima knew exactly what had gone down between the couple, Delphine hadn’t told her and Richard hadn’t been the talkative type, either), but it had made a chill run down Cosima’s spine. That Delphine had added an extra one hundred dollars to the amount she’d transferred and a “Thank you” in her note had just made Cosima’s worries increase.

She’s tried reaching out to Delphine’s parents, but they hadn’t had an idea where their daughter was, either, and Richard’s parents had refused to discuss the woman in any way. Cosima had tried emailing her, but Delphine hadn’t replied, so after three months, she’d finally given up, hoping that whatever she was doing now, wherever she was, Delphine had been able to find a bit of calm to work through everything.

Cosima finds herself staring at a phone number, brows furrowing. It isn’t one she is familiar with, though she recognizes the area code as Toronto.

On a whim, she hits redial and waits.

“ _ Cormier? _ ”

“Please do not hang up,” Cosima blurts, clutching the receiver in her hand. Her eyes flutter shut and she takes a deep breath. Her heart’s fluttering in her chest as the worry that has built over the past months falls away, making room for relief that Delphine is alive, that she is well enough to call Cosima in the first place.

“ _ Okay. _ ”

Delphine’s voice is soft, almost tired when she agrees.

“You scared me. I couldn’t reach you and when you didn’t answer my emails after wiring the money… I was worried.”

“ _ That was not my intention _ ,” Delphine mutters and Cosima can almost see her, running her hand through her curls to brush them away from her face, white teeth worrying at her lip…

“You’re probably gonna say no, but I would like to see you,” Cosima says, pinching the bridge of her nose. She shouldn’t be doing this, she should tell Delphine that everything is fine and let her, leave her in peace. But she just can’t help herself, and really, she’s just trying to make sure that Delphine is truly okay.

“ _ I am not sure that is a good idea, _ ” the French woman sighs and Cosima furrows her brows.

“How about drinks? Some neutral ground, to catch up with each other?” she suggests, crossing her fingers. The silence carrying over the line is heavy and Cosima’s heart sinks until she hears Delphine sigh again.

“ _ Okay, _ ” she agrees. “ _ Do you have a place in mind? _ ”

She really shouldn’t be, but Cosima can’t help but feel giddy and the butterflies in her stomach are doing somersaults when they settle on a date and time and place to meet up.

* * *

Cosima dances around the reason for her break-up that Delphine hinted at when she was in her apartment all those months ago. She doesn’t mention the terrified look on the other woman’s face, doesn’t wish to remind her of her own, rather unprofessional reaction to the unexpected confession.

That doesn’t mean she’s not watching Delphine closely for any hints that the other woman might be in a new relationship, or if she has any interest in the rather attractive female bartender. Cosima’s only human, after all, she has a natural curiosity. And she was worried about Delphine.

She’s lost weight. Her features seem sharper, and she’s constantly biting her lip, drawing it between her teeth. Cosima can’t help watching and feels herself starting to color when it continues to happen.

Maybe this was a bad idea. But Cosima is glad that she can be sitting opposite the other woman and make sure that she is okay. Well, relatively okay, at least. If Delphine wanted to, she could fool her, tell Cosima some lies, just enough to make her believe that she’s fine and doing okay. But as far as Cosima can tell, the other woman is being honest with her. Which is kind of a relief. That and of course that she is alive.

“I really was worried about you,” she admits after a sip of her drink. Delphine’s eyes skid away restlessly and she twirls the straw in her own drink with a soft sigh.

“I did not mean to cause concern,” she mutters, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. “I just, needed time. And space. I just, wanted to hide and figure things out and… I’m sorry.”

Cosima tilts her head, wondering if she shouldn’t bring it up but then her curiosity wins out.

“So, you get together with whoever it was that you fell in love with?”

Delphine’s eyes snap to her and widen. She’s cute, with this deer-in-the-headlights look and the blush coloring her cheeks, Cosima thinks and berates herself for the thought the next instant. Still she can’t wipe the grin of her face, even as Delphine looks into her drink and shakes her head.

“No,” she mutters, moving the straw around in her drink again as Cosima furrows her brows.

“Why not?”

She shouldn’t pry. It’s none of her business, she’s not Delphine’s friend, just the woman that got hired to plan a wedding that never took place. But she can’t help herself, curiosity has always been part of her and she would’ve thought that Delphine would do something about the feelings that had ruined her wedding plans.

“I… didn’t tell them,” she mutters, hiding her face in her hands. Delphine sighs and shrugs her shoulders, her arms falling onto the table. “Pathetic,  _ non _ ? I fall in love with someone that is not my fiancé, he breaks up with me and then I don’t even have the courage to…”

Delphine trails of with a shake of her head.

“Not pathetic, no,” Cosima swallows thickly. “It’s just… difficult. When you’re trying to figure stuff out and you’re not sure of your own feelings, never mind of the other person’s sexuality… It’s not pathetic, it’s… human.”

The blonde woman tilts her head, a hand going up to run through her hair.

“You’re not straight, are you?” she asks directly. The sudden boldness makes Cosima’s eyebrows shoot up before the grin returns to her face.

“No, I’m not straight,” she confirms, tilting her head to the side. Delphine gives a nod and takes a sip of her drink. Her lips are moving, but Cosima can’t catch what she’s mumbling. Maybe she should ignore it. But then again, she is Cosima.

“What was that?”

There’s a brief hesitation, Delphine’s hand pauses halfway back to her curls before she lowers it again.

“I said,” she starts, clearing her throat, “that that would just be my kind of luck.”

Now she’s lost her. Somewhere, Cosima is sure she missed something in their conversation for that to make sense, but she has no idea where she went off-track.

“Huh?”

“I kept trying to convince myself that any feelings I had would never be returned, because you were straight and would never be interested in me, and hell, I was your client-”

Whatever else falls from Delphine’s lips, Cosima can’t hear it over the sound of rushing blood filling her ears. She can see the other woman’s lips moving, her gaze is drawn to them, but nothing makes sense as she tries to catch up with what Delphine just said.

“Fuck.”

Delphine stops mid-word, judging from the way her mouth hangs open at Cosima’s sudden outburst.

“I’m sorry?”

“Just so I get this,” Cosima starts, telling her racing heart to get a grip. “You developed a crush on me?  _ I _ am the reason you started questioning your sexuality and why Richard and you broke up?”

She watches as Delphine swallows before she nods silently.

“Now that explains why he was pissed with me,” Cosima nods, things suddenly starting to make sense. Or at least more sense than they used to. Richard wasn’t exactly the asshole she believed him to be, the guy was just furious that the woman that ruined his engagement kept inquiring about his ex-fiancé and her whereabouts. If she had known, Cosima would never have tried to talk to him about any of this, oh crap, he must’ve thought she knew.

“I’m sorry,” Delphine apologizes, her voice soft. “I didn’t mean to tell him it was you. We were yelling at each other and it just… I’m sorry I put you in that situation, I shouldn’t have told you-”

“Are you still?” Cosima interrupts her before she can lose her courage. She watches Delphine blink in confusion.

“Am I still what?”

“Attracted. To me,” Cosima clarifies. Delphine gapes at her and her mouth keeps opening and closing, but she isn’t making a sound, and it’s almost adorable.

“‘Cause if you are, maybe we should, see each other again,” Cosima shrugs and this time, Delphine’s mouth hangs open for a solid ten seconds.

“What?” she croaks as Cosima empties the rest of her drink.

“Do you like, wanna go on a date? With me?” she asks outright. Delphine gapes at her, a blush spreading across her cheeks.

“Simple question, yes or no. Do you want to go on a date with me?” Cosima repeats slowly. She watches as Delphine swallows thickly before she nods mutely.

“Yes,” she finally says, inclining her head. “I would, like to go out with you.”


	14. coffee shop AU

She comes in like clockwork. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 10 am. Orders a tall cappuccino and sits down near the window. Sometimes, she has a science tome with her that she reads and keeps highlighting in, other times she brings her laptop and works on it, headphones in her ears. She catches her bobbing her head to the music a few times, and thinks it’s adorable.

 

As winter turns into spring and then summer, her order changes, from cappuccino to an iced coffee. She’s ordered some other stuff, too. Cosima can tell when she’s going to, because then she keeps looking at the menu board over the counter from the second she’s stepped into the coffee shop.

 

“Hi,” she greets her with a smile. Which is easy, when it’s her. It feels different on her face and she knows she’s in trouble, because this isn’t her retail smile, and if the customer behind Tall Cappucino/Iced Coffee realizes that she looks at them differently, it might mean disaster.

 

“Hi,” she smiles back and tilts her head just so.

 

“Your regular?” Cosima asks and already knows the answers to that, just from that head tilt. And the fact she spent a long time looking at the board.

 

“Uh, no. Strawberry milkshake, please. And a blueberry muffin,” she orders, digging out her purse as Cosima’s eyebrows shoot up. She never orders food. This is a new one, and she’s not entirely sure how she feels about that.

 

“Uh, sure. We’re out of blueberry, though,” she tells her, suddenly feeling highly uncomfortable when she sees her face fall. Oh please don’t let her be one of those customers. She never struck her as the type for drama before, but maybe she’s having a bad day, and-

 

“Just the milkshake, then.”

 

The frown is gone as quickly as it appeared. She does seem… down, though, Cosima thinks as she rings her up.

 

There’s a lull in the line and she grabs her order and a plate with a vanilla donut. Takes a deep breath and goes to deliver it to the table she settled down at. Tall Cappuccino/Iced Coffee only looks up from the screen of her laptop when she places the plate down.

 

“I didn’t order-” she starts and her eyes widen in surprise when she sees Cosima standing there, “that. But you know that,” she frowns at her and then looks at the donut.

 

“On the house,” Cosima assures her quickly. “It’s white chocolate icing and a vanilla cream filling. You looked sad about the muffin,” she tries to explain with a shrug. Much to her surprise, the other woman’s lips tug into a soft smile.

 

“Thank you,” she tells her and pulls the plate closer. Cosima smiles at her before she turns and returns to the counter.

 

When she goes to clear the table later, she finds a small note on the now empty plate, a scribbled ‘thank you’.

 

* * *

 

“Jerk,” Cosima mutters under her breath and slams the register close before she looks up again. And finds Tall Cappuccino/Iced Coffee staring at her with raised eyebrows. It makes her wince.

 

“Too loud?” she asks and feels herself blushing. The other woman shrugs.

 

“He deserved it,” she decides, her wallet in her hands. The usual bag she carries is missing, and boy, is that a fancy outfit.

 

“Espresso, to go,” she orders and Cosima cannot help but catch the way her hands are shaking as she pulls open the zipper of her wallet.

 

“Perhaps something without caffeine?” she suggests with a raised eyebrow. The other woman looks up sharply, her mouth falling open. And then she laughs.

 

“Perhaps you are right,” she allows and closes her eyes to take a deep breath. “Tall Decaf, with lots of milk, then,” she changes her order. Cosima grins at her as she punches in the order.

 

“Wise choice,” she winks at her before telling her the total and accepting the money.

 

* * *

 

The group is incredibly loud. And foreign. A mixture that Cosima does not entirely care for. Mostly because she knows how other customers are bound to react.

 

She lets them sort out their seating before she walks over to get their orders, quickly scribbling along. And almost dropping her pen in surprise at a familiar voice.

 

“Tall cappuccino, and a slice of apple pie.”

 

She looks up and finds her smiling at her before the guy on her left says something that gets her attention. And Cosima finds her heart skip a beat when she realizes that he just said her name. She didn’t know people got named Delphine.

 

A couple hours later, shortly before the end of her shift, Delphine walks over the counter. She looks almost as exhausted as Cosima feels. The rest have already left, trickling out of the coffee shop over the course of the past hour.

 

“Refill?” Cosima asks her, but the other woman shakes her head no.

 

“You do teas, right?” she asks and Cosima nods, refraining from pointing at the menu above her head. “Peppermint, to go.”

 

“Your friends seem nice,” she tells her as she rings up her order. She doesn’t usually make small talk like this, but the place is emptying out and right now, Delphine is the only customer in need of attention.

 

“They’re not my friends,” Delphine shakes her head and pulls a face before she closes her eyes. “And I should not have said that,” she adds in a lower voice. “Sorry, they’re in the same exchange student programme, we get together once a month and it was my turn to pick a place. We weren’t too bad, were we?” she asks, her teeth flashing as she worries at her bottom lip. Cosima quickly shakes her head.

 

“No,” she tells her, and it’s almost not exactly a lie. They were too loud, but they also racked up quite a bill.

 

“Liar,” Delphine calls her out on it, but there is an amused twinkle in her eyes. And then her order is called and she waves at her briefly before she goes to collect it and leaves the shop.

 

* * *

 

“What’s with the hat?”

 

Cosima rolls her eyes at the question.

 

“It’s my birthday,” she tells Delphine, feeling a blush coloring her cheeks.

 

“Happy birthday.” The response feels automatic and flat. And she shouldn’t feel hurt by that, but for some reason, Cosima does.

 

“Yeah, management thinks that, if we wear this, customers may feel like they have to tip us a bit better one day out of the year,” she adds and raises her eyebrows in silent question. Delphine stares and then she shakes her head quickly, snapping out of it.

 

“Sorry,” she apologizes, seeming flustered. “Uh, tall cappuccino, and one of those vanilla donuts.”

 

“Coming right up,” Cosima tells her and watches in surprise when Delphine puts her change in the box marked “TIPS” on the counter with a wink.

 

* * *

 

“Do you like blueberries?”

 

Cosima blinks in surprise.

 

“Uh, I guess?” she returns with a frown.

 

“Strawberries, then? Cherries?” Delphine continues and Cosima’s frown deepens.

 

“Are you ordering, or-”

 

“Come on, work with me here,” Delphine interrupts her and motions to the menu. “Which one’s your favorite muffin flavor you do here?”

 

“Uh,” Cosima blinks, thinking, “double chocolate, I guess?” she answers, wondering what on earth is going on. It feels like she is missing something, part of the conversation she didn’t quite catch.

 

“Thank you,” Delphine nods and smiles at her. “Tall cappuccino to go, and a double chocolate muffin on a plate, please.”

 

“But the cappuccino-”

 

“Please,” Delphine interrupts her and bats her eyelashes and Cosima shakes her head with a sigh and then punches in the order.

 

Two customers later, she suddenly finds herself face-to-face with Delphine again.

 

“Happy Birthday,” she tells her and holds out the plate with the muffin. Which now is sporting a small candle in its middle. Cosima lets out a soft laugh and accepts the plate.

 

“Your colleagues told me I wasn’t allowed to actually light it,” Delphine tells her with a short glare in the direction of the pick up counter. “So you will just have to pretend to blow it out when you make your wish.”

 

“But my birthday was yesterday,” Cosima finds herself arguing.

 

“And I didn’t have a candle with me yesterday,” Delphine replies with a smile and a wink. “Joyeux anniversaire, Cosima,” she adds before she leaves the line. Cosima watches her leave the shop, still holding the plate with the muffin, a stupid, giddy grin on her face now. Delphine never said her name before.

 

* * *

 

“Is it a promotion? Or demotion?”

 

Cosima rolls her eyes as she calls out another order.

 

“Rotating system,” she answers Delphine, handing over a paper cup of coffee to a customer.

 

“I have never seen you at this station. And I come here a lot,” Delphine frowns and Cosima finds herself giving her a mock glare.

 

“Then you should know that you pick up your order and go find a seat,” she tells her, immediately regretting her words when Delphine looks genuinely hurt. “Aw, shit,” she mutters as she watches her retreat into a corner.

 

“I hope you’re not thinking of lighting that,” she tells her half an hour later. Delphine looks up in surprise from the screen of her laptop and then blinks in confusion at the cigarette in her hand. She quickly shakes her head no.

 

“Sorry, force of habit,” she apologizes and digs out the pack from her purse to put the cigarette back in it.

 

“I’m sorry, too,” Cosima apologizes quickly, “for earlier, what I said?” Delphine’s brows furrow before she realizes what Cosima is talking about. And shakes her head again.

 

“No, it’s okay,” she tells her, eyes going back to her work. And flickering back to Cosima when she fails to move. “Was there something else?” she asks with a frown.

 

“I really am sorry, it was just meant to be a joke-”

 

“Cosima, please. Not today,” the other woman shakes her head and Cosima lets out a huff before she turns and returns to her work.

 

* * *

 

“It’s Sunday,” Cosima says rather stupidly. Delphine blinks at her in confusion, her brows furrowing.

 

“I am aware,” she nods. She shifts and Cosima realizes with a start that what the other woman is wearing is not a badly judged fashion statement, but purple scrubs.

 

“You’re a doctor?” she asks her in surprise. Delphine’s eyes widen and she blushes to the roots of her hair.

 

“Intern,” she corrects her and lets out a soft groan as beeping sounds come from her pocket. “Dammit,” she mutters as she reads the display and mutes it.

 

“No order?” Cosima asks and Delphine shakes her head no.

 

“Not unless you can work miracles,” she calls over her shoulder as she leaves the shop in a jog.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t do it on purpose. Truly not. If she had, she would have chosen something more dignified and way less painful.

 

“At least you were smart enough not to cover it,” Delphine mutters as she examines her arm, and the burn the hot steam caused.

 

“I wasn’t sure, I thought infection, but then again, I felt like I really didn’t want anything sticking to my skin…” Cosima shrugs, kicking her dangling legs. The hospital gurney was uncomfortable to lie on, so she sat up. Delphine seems to not care which position she is in as long as she can examine her arm.

 

“How did this happen?” she asks her, grabbing a pair of tweezers and Cosima quickly looks away from what the other woman is about to do.

 

“I was stupid,” she shrugs and lets out a hiss of pain. “I didn’t check if it was still hot before I opened the top of the machine. Didn’t manage to pull my arm back fast enough,” she adds through grit teeth.

 

“Careful,” the doctor hovering at Delphine’s shoulder interjects and Cosima makes the mistake of looking down at her work, and feels the room swimming.

 

“Woah, woah,” Delphine drops the tweezers and steadies her, carefully guiding her to lie back on the gurney. Cosima feels the headrest drop, blood rushing back into her head.

 

“It’s okay,” Delphine mutters, fingers pressed to her neck to check Cosima’s pulse, “your blood pressure just dropped.”

 

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Cosima mutters pathetically and feels a plastic bowl pressed against her cheek.

 

“Not on my shoes, please,” Delphine responds, “I just had them cleaned from the last time.”

 

It makes Cosima chuckle, which turns into a groan and then she’s retching and hopes she didn’t miss the kidney bowl, because that, now that would just the icing on the Pathetic ™ cake.

 

 

* * *

 

“Looks good,” Delphine declares with a smile when she peels away the bandage a few days later. Cosima chances a glance and finds herself almost agreeing. It still looks bad to her, but not as bad as it used to.

 

“You might get lucky, I don’t think it’s going to scar.”

 

“Yay,” Cosima does a half-hearted fist pump, drawing a laugh from the other woman.

 

“How’s the pain?”

 

“Not too bad,” Cosima shrugs. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, because Delphine narrows her eyes at her and grabs her chart.

 

“You take your prescription?” she asks, scanning the page. Cosima nods quickly. “How often?”

 

“Uh,” she fumbles, trying to think. She did get it filled, and took one, or two, but then… “Every six hours?” she tries. Delphine raises an eyebrow and lowers the chart and Cosima sees a flashing neon sign with the word BUSTED! appear over her head. “Or so.”

 

“Cosima,” Delphine starts and lets out a soft sigh, “you can do whatever you want. It’s your body,” she tells her and despite the statement, Cosima can feel her hackles rising. Damn right it’s her body and she will do whatever she wants to it-

 

“But when you lie to your physician, you run the risk of compromising your treatment. Never mind that some drugs can have deadly side effects when mixed with narcotics-”

 

“It was just weed, okay,” Cosima rolls her eyes. “I smoke a joint instead of taking the stupid pills. They made my head fuzzy.”

 

“And pot doesn’t?” Delphine raises her eyebrows and then shakes her head. “Whatever. If it works for you,” she shrugs and gets up to grab a fresh pair of gloves. Cosima watches her intently, searches her face.

 

“You’re not a fan of, plant remedies?”

 

“I work in an emergency room,” Delphine answers, carefully examining the tissue on Cosima’s arm. “I’ve seen too many drug deals gone bad to be a fan of anything associated with them.”

 

“Dude, pot’s-”

 

“We’re not talking about this,” the blonde tells her resolutely and gives a nod. “Looks good. I’ll have a nurse re-dress this and instruct you on how to do it yourself at home.”

 

“I don’t have to come in any more?” Cosima asks, feeling a strange mixture of relief and sadness.

 

“Just for a check-up in a couple of days. Before that, no. Not unless it shows signs of infection. The nurse will tell you what to look out for.”

 

“Why can’t you?”

 

The question is out before Cosima can stop herself and she cringes at the way her voice sounds. Like a petulant child.

 

Delphine pauses, her hand mid-air from throwing her gloves into the bin.

 

“I have another patient I need to check up on.”

 

“More important than me?” Cosima attempts a joke. The expression in Delphine’s eyes is hard and cold when she looks at her.

 

“He’s thirteen. His brother thought dealing crack from home was a good idea and he got caught in the crossfire. So if you will excuse me, I have to make sure that the kidney that wasn’t shredded in a hail of bullets is doing its job until he gets to the OR.”

 

The door swings shut behind Delphine and Cosima closes her eyes, berating herself for her stupidity.

* * *

“How’s the arm?”

 

“How’s your face?” Cosima asks, reaching out and turning Delphine’s face so the light catches the shiner she is sporting. She winces in sympathy before she realizes what she just did and quickly pulls her hand back. Delphine merely shrugs.

 

“Healing,” she tells her, motioning for Cosima to sit down on the gurney as she put on a fresh pair of gloves before she carefully peels the bandage away.

 

“What happened?”

 

She watches Delphine frown and poke at her burn, causing her to wince and flinch.

 

“Sorry,” the other woman mutters distractedly. “I told a father I wasn’t discussing his daughter’s diagnosis with him, he didn’t respond to it that well.”

 

“Ouch.”

 

“Gave me a reason to call Social Services on him and get her out of there, so it kind of was worth it,” Delphine adds, a slight grin tugging on her lips.

 

“You can leave off the bandages now,” she tells her as she leans back. Cosima nods in acknowledgement.

 

“Can I get another prescription for the salve?” she asks. Delphine gives her a look and then nods. She grabs the block from the pocket of her coat and fills it out.

 

“Use sparingly,” she tells her as she hands Cosima the slip of paper. “You know what that means, right?”

 

Cosima rolls her eyes. Maybe she went a little overboard with it, so what? It’s not like she doesn’t have to pay for it.

 

“Yeah, I thought so,” Delphine smiles before she gets up and waves at Cosima and then leaves the room. And Cosima reaches up to hit her palm against her forehead repeatedly.

 

  


* * *

 

“Cosima,” Delphine exclaims in surprise when she looks up from the chart she was glaring at after a near-collision with another doctor.

 

“Blueberries are your favorite, right?” Cosima asks her, holding out a paper cup and a small paper bag. Delphine pauses and then she gives her a dazzling smile, putting the chart down to accept the gifts.

 

“What do I owe you?” she asks and Cosima quickly shakes her head.

 

“No, these are on me,” she tells her. And sees Delphine shift, an expression crossing her face Cosima isn’t able to read.

 

“Uh, Allen,” Delphine calls out, causing the receptionist to perk up from behind a stack of charts. “I’m taking my break now. The kid in three needs a new IV,” she tells him and then motions towards the sliding doors, silently inviting Cosima along.

 

The break room looks pretty messy. Probably what you get when you put a lot of people in a small space and none of them have time to clean up after themselves. Delphine grabs a handful of mugs in various stages of emptiness and dumps them into the sink.

 

“Please, sit down,” she tells Cosima as she quickly washes her hands.

 

“Should I be back here?” the barrista asks. Delphine hesitates before she shrugs.

 

“I have seen a lot worse walking in here than a former patient sitting at the table. I think we’re good,” she says and sits down before getting up again. “I’m so sorry, do you want something to drink?”

 

“No,” Cosima quickly answers and reaches for her, her arm falling short. “Really, I’m good. Just, sit down. And eat, because you look like you’re starving.”

 

Is that a blush coloring Delphine’s cheeks? Cosima shakes her head slightly to clear it. She’s imagining things now. Great. What’s next?

 

“I am,” Delphine admits, pulling out the muffin and sinking her teeth into it, a soft sigh escaping her. And now Cosima can feel herself blush. “Sorry,” the doctor apologizes after swallowing. She motions at the muffin, a dreamy expression crossing a face. “But this is really good.”

 

“Glad you like it. I wasn’t sure if I remembered correctly…” Cosima trails off, heat burning in her cheeks and her neck. Delphine pauses and slowly sets down the muffin in a deliberate motion.

 

“Why did you do this?” she asks, watching Cosima intently. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate it, but… why?”

 

Cosima shrugs, fingers toying with the frayed edge of her scarf.

 

“No reason, really. I guess I wanted to, thank you. From preventing me from having to go through life with a massive scar on my arm.”

 

Delphine’s eyes narrow slightly, telling her she doesn’t buy it. Crap.

 

“So, how long, is this, break of yours?” she asks and watches as Delphine’s brows furrow in confusion.

 

“Why?” she responds with a question of her own instead of an answer.

 

Now or never, Niehaus. Grow a pair.

 

“Because, there’s a nice restaurant around the corner. Thai. Do you like Thai food?”

 

Delphine watches her and then she gives a minute shake of her head before she errupts into laughter. And Cosima feels her face fall and a different kind of heat rises to her face.

 

Good job of making a fool of yourself, idiot.

 

“No, please,” Delphine gets out between laughs and grabs her hand as Cosima stands. It makes her freeze and stare down at the fingers circling her wrist in gentle pressure.

 

“I did not mean to laugh. I’m sorry, you just, surprised me,” Delphine tells her. Cosima chances a glance at her and she does look sincere, the laughter gone from her face now. “It’s been a long day, I guess I, reached my limit. I’m sorry, Cosima.”

 

“It’s okay,” she shakes her head and shrugs, the motion dislodging Delphine’s fingers. Her hand falls away and suddenly, Cosima wishes she would touch her again. But the French doctor pulls her hand back, wringing it in her lap.

 

“I know that place. The Thai food restaurant,” she tells her and shakes her head with a nose wrinkle. “It’s not good.”

 

“No?”

 

“No,” Delphine confirms, teeth flashing as she worries at her bottom lip briefly. “But, if you like Thai food in general, there is another place. It’s a couple of blocks away, though.”

 

“So, it wouldn’t work during your break,” Cosima shifts, intently watching the other woman.

 

“No. And they’re, a bit… upscale? They wouldn’t let me in wearing scrubs.”

 

“So we would have to go after work. And dress up for it. To be let in, I mean.”

 

“Yes,” the blonde nods eagerly, her curls bobbing at the motion. Cosima feels a smile tug at her lips.

 

“Well, uh,” she starts and clears her throat, “I have the weekend off. Depending on your shifts, we could, meet up. See if they really have nice Thai food.”

 

“Oh, the food is excellent,” Delphine confirms, a soft blush coloring her cheeks. Cosima watches her and suddenly finds herself laughing.

 

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes quickly when she sees Delphine’s confused expression. “But, just to be absolutely clear about this, are we trying to set up a date with each other without actually admitting that it is one?”

 

Delphine opens her mouth, but then she hesitates. Tilts her head and closes it and lets out a soft laugh as she inclines her head and nods.

 

“Yes, I think we are,” she confirms.

 

“Cool,” Cosima nods in amusement. “Just, making sure.”

 

“How does Saturday at seven sound for you?” Delphine asks and Cosima calculates in her head before she nods.

 

“Works perfectly. Do you want to meet there, or can I pick you up?” she asks her. The blonde thinks about it briefly before she shakes her head.

 

“No, meeting there works better. My shift may run late, I’d hate for you to stand in front of an empty apartment.”

 

“Okay,” Cosima nods, and, following an impulse, bends down and kisses the corner of Delphine’s mouth.

 

“See you Saturday,” she mutters before she straightens and walks out of the break room. She makes it halfway down the hall before she pauses and does a fist pump.


End file.
